had done so little, and who was not at all a heroine, was yet to
undergo the same honorable and beautiful death by which real heroes
and martyrs had died before her. With unshakable faith in human
kindness, in their compassion, in their love, she pictured to herself
how people were now agitated on her account, how they suffered, how
they pitied her, and she felt so ashamed that she blushed, as if, by
dying upon the scaffold, she had committed some tremendous, awkward
blunder.

At the last meeting with their counsel she had asked him to bring her
poison, but suddenly she had changed her mind. What if he and the
others, she thought, should consider that she was doing it merely to
become conspicuous, or out of cowardice, that instead of dying
modestly and unnoticed, she was attempting to glorify herself. And she
added hastily:

"No, it isn't necessary."

And now she desired but one thing-to be able to explain to people, to
prove to them so that they should have not the slightest doubt that
she was not at all a heroine, that it was not terrible to die, that
they should not feel sorry for her, nor trouble themselves about her.
She wished to be able to explain to them that she was not at all to
blame that she, who was so young and so insignificant, was to undergo
such a martyr's death, and that so much trouble should be made on her
account.

Like a person who is actually accused of a crime, Musya sought
justification. She endeavored to find something that would at least
make her sacrifice more momentous, which might give it real value. She