They spoke to him accordingly, with neither fear nor respect, just as
they would speak to prisoners who were not to be executed. The warden,
on learning of the verdict, said to him:

"Well, my friend, they've hanged you!"

"When are they going to hang me?" asked Yanson distrustfully. The
warden meditated a moment.

"Well, you'll have to wait-until they can get together a whole party.
It isn't worth bothering for one man, especially for a man like you.
It is necessary to work up the right spirit."

"And when will that be?" persisted Yanson. He was not at all offended
that it was not worth while to hang him alone. He did not believe it,
but considered it as an excuse for postponing the execution,
preparatory to revoking it altogether. And he was seized with joy; the
confused, terrible moment, of which it was so painful to think,
retreated far into the distance, becoming fictitious and improbable,
as death always seems.

"When? When?" cried the warden, a dull, morose old man, growing angry.
"It isn't like hanging a dog, which you take behind the barn-and it is
done in no time. I suppose you would like to be hanged like that, you
fool!"

"I don't want to be hanged," and suddenly Yanson frowned strangely.
"He said that I should be hanged, but I don't want it."

And perhaps for the first time in his life he laughed, a hoarse,