rubbish. Though he did not acknowledge it to
himself, his faith in the right ordering of the universe, in humanity,
in his own soul, and in God, had been destroyed. He had experienced this
before, but never so strongly as now. When similar doubts had assailed
him before, they had been the result of his own wrongdoing, and at the
bottom of his heart he had felt that relief from his despair and from
those doubts was to be found within himself. But now he felt that
the universe had crumbled before his eyes and only meaningless ruins
remained, and this not by any fault of his own. He felt that it was not
in his power to regain faith in the meaning of life.

Around him in the darkness men were standing and evidently something
about him interested them greatly. They were telling him something and
asking him something. Then they led him away somewhere, and at last he
found himself in a corner of the shed among men who were laughing and
talking on all sides.

"Well, then, mates... that very prince who..." some voice at the other
end of the shed was saying, with a strong emphasis on the word who.

Sitting silent and motionless on a heap of straw against the wall,
Pierre sometimes opened and sometimes closed his eyes. But as soon as
he closed them he saw before him the dreadful face of the factory
lad--especially dreadful because of its simplicity--and the faces of the
murderers, even more dreadful because of their disquiet. And he opened
his eyes again and stared vacantly into the darkness around him.

Beside him in a stooping position sat a small man of whose presence he
was first made aware by a strong smell of perspiration which came from
him every time he moved. This man was doing something to his legs in the
darkness, and though Pierre could not see his face he felt that the man
continually glanced at him. On growing used to the darkness Pierre saw
that the man was taking off his leg bands, and the way he did it aroused
Pierre's interest.

Having unwound the string that tied the band on one leg, he carefully
coiled it up and immediately set to work on the other leg, glancing up
at Pierre. While one hand hung up the first string the other was already
unwinding the band on the second leg. In this way, having carefully
removed the leg bands by deft circular motions of his arm following
one another uninterruptedly, the man hung the leg bands up on some pegs
fixed above his head. Then he took out a knife, cut something, clos