was locked. And it was dark. Several times he struck his body against
the walls, making no sound, and once he struck against the door- it
gave forth a dull, empty sound. He stumbled over something and fell
upon his face, and then he felt that IT was going to seize him. Lying
on his stomach, holding to the floor, hiding his face in the dark,
dirty asphalt, Yanson howled in terror. He lay; and cried at the top
of his voice until some one came. And when he was lifted from the
floor and seated upon the cot, and cold water was poured over his
head, he still did not dare open his tightly closed eyes. He opened
one eye, and noticing some one's boot in one of the corners of the
room, he commenced crying again.

But the cold water began to produce its effect in bringing him to his
senses. To help the effect, the warden on duty, the same old man,
administered medicine to Yanson in the form of several blows upon the
head. And this sensation of life returning to him really drove the
fear of death away. Yanson opened his eyes, and then, his mind utterly
confused, he slept soundly for the remainder of the night. He lay on
his hack, with mouth open, and snored loudly, and between his lashes,
which were not tightly closed, his flat, dead eyes, which were
upturned so that the pupil did not show, could be seen.

Later, everything in the world - day and night, footsteps, voices, the
soup of sour cabbage, produced in him a continuous terror, plunging
him into a state of savage uncomprehending astonishment. His weak mind
was unable to combine these two things which so monstrously
contradicted each other - the bright day, the odor and taste of
cabbage - and the fact that two days later he must die. He did not
think of anything. He did not even count the hours, but simply stood
in mute stupefaction before this contradiction which tore his brain in