preparations for a terroristic act. Everything in life was joyous,
everything in life was important, everything should be done well.

And he did everything well: he was an excellent sailor, an expert shot
with the revolver. He was as faithful in friendship as in love, and a
fanatic believer in the "word of honor." His comrades laughed at him,
saying that if the most notorious spy told him upon his word of honor
that he was not a spy, Sergey would believe him and would shake hands
with him as with any comrade. He had one fault,-he was convinced that
he could sing well, whereas in fact he had no ear for music and even
sang the revolutionary songs out of tune, and felt offended when his
friends laughed at him.

"Either you are all asses, or I am an ass," he would declare seriously
and even angrily. And all his friends as seriously declared: "You are
an ass. We can tell by your voice."

But, as is sometimes the case with good people, he was perhaps liked
more for this little foible than for his good qualities.

He feared death so little and thought of it so little that on the
fatal morning, before leaving the house of Tanya Kovalchuk, he was the
only one who had breakfasted properly, with an appetite. He drank two
glasses of tea with milk, and a whole five-copeck roll of bread. Then
he glanced at Werner's untouched bread and said:

"Why don't you eat? Eat. We must brace up."

"I don't feel like eating."