Werner understood that the execution was not merely death, that it was
something different,-but he resolved to face it calmly, as something
not to be considered; to live until the end as if nothing had happened
and as if nothing could happen. Only in this way could he express his
greatest contempt for capital punishment and preserve his last freedom
of the spirit which could not be torn away from him. At the trial-and
even his comrades who knew well his cold, haughty fearlessness would
perhaps not have believed this,-he thought neither of death nor of
life,-but concentrated his attention deeply and coolly upon a
difficult chess game which he was playing. A superior chess player, he
had started this game on the first day of his imprisonment and
continued it uninterruptedly. Even the sentence condemning him to
death by hanging did not remove a single figure from his imaginary
chessboard. Even the knowledge that he would not be able to finish
this game, did not stop him; and the morning of the last day that he
was to remain on earth he started by correcting a not altogether
successful move he had made on the previous day. Clasping his lowered
hands between his knees, he sat for a long time motionless, then he
rose and began to walk, meditating. His walk was peculiar: he leaned
the upper part of his body slightly forward and stamped the ground
with his heels firmly and distinctly. His steps usually left deep,
plain imprints even on dry ground. He whistled softly, in one breath,
a simple Italian melody, which helped his meditation.

But this time for some reason or other the thing did not work well.
With an unpleasant feeling that he had made some important, even grave
blunder, he went back several times and examined the game almost from
the beginning. He found no blunder, yet the feeling about a blunder
committed not only failed to leave him, but even grew ever more
intense and unpleasant. Suddenly an unexpected and offensive thought