"Well, what a fool! Of course it can be done with music. This way!"
and he began to sing, with a bold and daring swing.

"You have lost your wits, my friend," said the warden. "What do you
say? Speak sensibly."

Tsiganok grinned.

"How eager you are! Come another time and I'll tell you."

After that, into that chaos of bright, yet incomplete images which
oppressed Tsiganok by their impetuosity, a new image came -how good it
would be to become a hangman in a red shirt. He pictured to himself
vividly a square crowded with people, a high scaffold, and he,
Tsiganok, in a red shirt walking about upon the scaffold with an ax.
The sun shone overhead, gaily flashing from the ax, and everything was
so gay and bright that even the man whose head was soon to be chopped
off was smiling. And behind the crowd, wagons and the heads of horses
could be seen-the peasants had come from the village; and beyond them,
further, he could see the village itself.

"Ts-akh!"

Tsiganok smacked his lips, licking them, and spat. And suddenly he
felt as though a fur cap had been pushed over his head to his very
mouth-it became black and stifling, and his heart again became like a
cake of unmelting ice, sending a slight, dry shiver through his whole
body.

The warden came in twice again, and Tsiganok, showing his teeth, said: