came into his mind: Did the blunder perhaps consist in his playing
chess simply because he wanted to distract his attention from the
execution and thus shield himself against the fear of death which is
apparently inevitable in every person condemned to death?

"No. What for?" he answered coldly and closed calmly his imaginary
chessboard. And with the same concentration with which he had played
chess, he tried to give himself an account of the horror and the
helplessness of his situation. As though he were going through a
strict examination, he looked over the cell, trying not to let
anything escape. He counted the hours that remained until the
execution, made for himself an approximate and quite exact picture of
the execution itself and shrugged his shoulders.

"Well?" he said to some one half-questioningly. "Here it is. Where is
the fear?"

Indeed there was no fear. Not only was it not there, but something
entirely different, the reverse of fear, developed-a sensation of
confused, but enormous and savage joy. And the error, which he had not
yet discovered, no longer called forth in him vexation or
irritation,-it seemed to speak loudly of something good and
unexpected, as though he had believed a dear friend of his to be dead,
and that friend turned out to be alive, safe and sound and laughing.

Werner again shrugged his shoulders and felt his pulse,-his heart was
beating faster than usual, but soundly and evenly, with a specially
ringing throb. He looked about once more, attentively, like a novice
for the first time in prison,-examined the walls, the bolts, the chair
which was screwed to the floor, and thought: