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But suddenly his own face became bluish-black, like cast-iron, and his large yellow teeth flashed. Suddenly the little cars trembled and slackened their speed. All, except Yanson and Kashirin, rose and sat down again quickly. "Here is the station," said Sergey. It seemed to them as if all the air had been suddenly pumped out of the car, it became so difficult to breathe.
And he repeated tenderly, in anguish: "Joy of all the afflicted, come to me, help Vaska Kashirin."
To Vasily Kashirin, who was condemned to death by hanging, everything now seemed like children's playthings: his cell, the door with the peephole, the strokes of the wound-up clock, the carefully molded fortress, and especially that mechanical puppet with the gun who stamped his feet in the corridor, and the others who, frightening him, peeped into his cell through the little window and handed him the food in silence.
"Joy of all the afflicted! You are silent! Will you not say anything to Vaska Kashirin?" He smiled patiently and waited. All was empty within his soul and about him. And the calm, mournful image did not reappear. He recalled, painfully and unnecessarily, wax candles burning; the priest in his vestments; the ikon painted on the wall.
Under the same ringing of the clock, separated from Sergey and Musya by only a few empty cells, but yet so painfully desolate and alone in the whole world as though no other soul existed, poor Vasily Kashirin was passing the last hours of his life in terror and in anguish.
His dying reason flared up as red as blood again and said that he, Vasily Kashirin, might perhaps become insane here, suffer pains for which there is no name, reach a degree of anguish and suffering that had never been experienced by a single living being; that he might beat his head against the wall, pick his eyes out with his fingers, speak and shout whatever he pleased, that he might plead with tears that he could endure it no longer, and nothing would happen.
Tsiganok kissed firmly, so that they felt his teeth; Yanson softly, drowsily, with his mouth half open and it seemed that he did not understand what he was doing. When Sergey Golovin and Kashirin had gone a few steps, Kashirin suddenly stopped and said loudly and distinctly: "Good-by, comrades." "Good-by, comrade," they shouted in answer. They went off. It grew quiet.
He felt sorry for his comrades, especially for Vasya Kashirin; but that was a cold, almost official pity, which even some of the judges may have felt at times.
After the verdict, having bidden good-by to their frock-coated lawyers, and evading each other's helplessly confused, pitying and guilty eyes, the convicted terrorists crowded in the doorway for a moment and exchanged brief words. "Never mind, Vasya. Everything will be over soon," said Werner. "I am all right, brother," Kashirin replied loudly, calmly and even somewhat cheerfully.
Returning to the cell, Sergey lay down on the cot, his face turned toward the wall, in order to hide it from the soldiers, and he wept for a long time. Then, exhausted by his tears, he slept soundly. To Vasily Kashirin only his mother came. His father, who was a wealthy tradesman, did not want to come.
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