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He grinned, showing his teeth, and quickly clapped Werner on the knee several times. "That's the way, master! How does the song run? 'Don't rustle, O green little mother forest...." "Why do you call me 'master, since we are all going " "Correct," Tsiganok agreed with satisfaction. "What kind of master are you, if you are going to hang right beside me?
His brain thus racked on a monstrously sharp blade between life and death was falling to pieces like a lump of dry clay. When they entered the cell at midnight to lead Tsiganok to the execution he began to bustle about and seemed to have recovered his spirits.
There where the lanterns are are those the gallows? What does it mean?" Werner looked at him. Tsiganok was writhing in agony before his death. "We must bid each other good-by," said Tanya Kovalchuk. "Wait, they have yet to read the sentence," answered Werner. "Where is Yanson?" Yanson was lying on the snow, and about him people were busying themselves. There was a smell of ammonia in the air.
Tanya Kovalchuk, weeping freely, petted him on the arm, and adjusted the drooping earlaps of his worn fur cap. "My dear, do not cry! My own! my dear! Poor, unfortunate little fellow!" Musya looked aside. Tsiganok caught her glance and grinned, showing his teeth. "What a queer fellow! He drinks tea, and yet feels cold," he said, with an abrupt laugh.
And it was no longer like a current, but like an endless fall to an endless depth, a whirling flight through the whole visible world of colors. When Tsiganok was free he had worn only a pair of dashing mustaches, but in the prison a short, black, bristly beard grew on his face and it made him look fearsome, insane.
And suddenly he felt as though a fur cap had been pushed over his head to his very mouth it became black and stifling, and his heart again became like a cake of unmelting ice, sending a slight, dry shiver through his whole body. The warden came in twice again, and Tsiganok, showing his teeth, said: "How eager you are! Come in again!"
Of his last crime, since it was useless for him to deny anything, he spoke freely and in detail, but in answer to questions about his past, he merely gritted his teeth, whistled, and said: "Search for the wind of the fields!" When he was annoyed in cross-examination, Tsiganok assumed a serious and dignified air: "All of us from Oryol are thoroughbreds," he would say gravely and deliberately.
"Let it go," said Werner, frowning, looking uneasily at Yanson, whose hand, holding the cigarette, was hanging loosely, as if dead. Suddenly Tsiganok turned quickly, bent over to Werner, close to him, face to face, and rolling the whites of his eyes, like a horse, whispered: "Master, how about the convoys? Suppose we we? Shall we try?" "No, don't do it," Werner replied, also in a whisper.
For me death also existed before, but now it exists no longer." Musya's somewhat paled cheeks flushed as she asked: "It did exist, Werner? It did?" "It did. But not now any longer. Just the same as with you." A noise was heard in the doorway of the car. Mishka Tsiganok entered, stamping noisily with his heels, breathing loudly and spitting. He cast a swift glance and stopped obdurately.
Another one, however, with a wild Russian beard, but with the eyes of a Tartar, like those of Tsiganok, gazed pensively above Tsiganok's head, then smiled and remarked: "It is indeed interesting." With light hearts, without mercy, without the slightest pangs of conscience, the judges brought out against Tsiganok a verdict of death. "Correct!" said Tsiganok, when the verdict was pronounced.
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