gliding images turned into music. It was just as if, on a quiet, dark
night, Musya was riding along a broad, even road, while the easy
springs of the carriage rocked her and the little bells tinkled. All
alarm and agitation had passed, the fatigued body had dissolved in the
darkness, and her joyously wearied fancy calmly created bright images,
carried away by their color and their peaceful tranquillity. Musya
recalled three of her comrades who had been hanged but a short time
before, and their faces seemed bright and happy and near to her-nearer
than those in life. Thus does a man think with joy in the morning of
the house of his friends where he is to go in the evening, and a
greeting rises to his smiling lips,

Musya became very tired from walking. She lay down cautiously on the
cot and continued to dream with slightly closed eyes. The clock-bell
rang unceasingly, stirring the mute silence, and bright, singing
images floated calmly before her. Musya thought:

"Is it possible that this is Death? My God! How beautiful it is! Or is
it Life? I do not know. I do not know. I will look and listen."

Her hearing had long given way to her imagination-from the first
moment of her imprisonment. Inclined to be very musical, her ear had
become keen in the silence, and on this background of silence, out of
the meagre bits of reality, the footsteps of the guards in the
corridors, the ringing of the clock, the rustling of the wind on the
iron roof, the creaking of the lantern-it created complete musical
pictures. At first Musya was afraid of them, brushed them away from
her as if they were the hallucinations of a sickly mind. But later she
understood that she herself was well, and that this was no derangement
of any kind-and she gave herself up to the dreams calmly.