"They'll swing you up so quickly that you'll have no time to kick."

"Keep still 1" cried the other convoy angrily. But he himself could
not refrain from adding:

"A robber, too! Why did you take a human life, you fool? You must hang
for that!"

"They might pardon him," said the first soldier, who began to feel
sorry for Yanson.

"Oh, yes! They'll pardon people like him, will they? Well, we've
talked enough."

But Yanson had become silent again.

He was again placed in the cell in which he had already sat for a
month and to which he had grown accustomed, just as he had become
accustomed to everything: to blows, to vodka, to the dismal,
snow-covered fields, with their snow-heaps resembling graves.

And now he even began to feel cheerful when he saw his bed, the
familiar window with the grating, and when he was given something to
eat-he had not eaten anything since morning. He had an unpleasant
recollection of what had taken place in the court, but of that he
could not think-he was unable to recall it. And death by hanging he
could not picture to himself at all.

Although Yanson had been condemned to death, there were many others
similarly sentenced, and he was not regarded as an important criminal.