undergo the same
honorable and beautiful death by which real heroes and martyrs had
died before her. With unshakable faith in human kindness, in their
compassion, in their love, she pictured to herself how people were now
agitated on her account, how they suffered, how they pitied her, and she
felt so ashamed that she blushed, as if, by dying upon the scaffold, she
had committed some tremendous, awkward blunder.

At the last meeting with their counsel she had asked him to bring
her poison, but suddenly she had changed her mind. What if he and the
others, she thought, should consider that she was doing it merely to
become conspicuous, or out of cowardice, that instead of dying modestly
and unnoticed, she was attempting to glorify herself. And she added
hastily:

"No, it isn't necessary."

And now she desired but one thing--to be able to explain to people, to
prove to them so that they should have not the slightest doubt that she
was not at all a heroine, that it was not terrible to die, that they
should not feel sorry for her, nor trouble themselves about her. She
wished to be able to explain to them that she was not at all to blame
that she, who was so young and so insignificant, was to undergo such a
martyr's death, and that so much trouble should be made on her account.

Like a person who is actually accused of a crime, Musya sought
justification. She endeavored to find something that would at least
make her sacrifice more momentous, which might give it real value. She
reasoned:

"Of course, I am young and could have lived for a long time. But--"

And as a candle darkens in the glare of the rising sun, so her youth
and her life seemed dull and dark compared to that great and resplendent
radiance which would shine above her simple head. There was no
justification.

But perhaps that peculiar something which she bore in her soul--boundless
love, boundless eagerness to do great deeds, her boundless contempt for
herself--was a justification in itself. She felt that she was really
not to blame that she was hindered from doing the things she could have
done, which she had wished to do--that she had been smitten upon the
threshold of the temple, at the foot of the altar.

But if that were so, if a person is appreciated not only for what he has
done, but also for what he had intended to do--then--then she was worthy
of the crown of the martyr!

"Is it possible?" thought Musya bashfully. "Is it possible that I am
w