They were stifled, suffocated with laughter. Laughter twisted the bodies of these people, bent them double, vibrated and gurgled in the air--a mighty, devil-may-care laughter, growing louder continually, and reaching the very confines of hysteria. Smiling faces, in white kerchiefs, looked down from the windows of the women's quarters into the yard. The Inspector, squeezing his back to the wall, poked out his brawny body, and, holding it with both hands, discharged his thick, bass, overpowering laugh in regular salvoes. The joke scattered the folks in all directions around the pail. Performing astounding antics with his legs, Zazubrina danced with all his might, singing by way of accompaniment: "Ah, life is a merry thing, As the grey cat knew, I ween; And her son, the ginger kitten, Now lives in a world all green." "Yes, that it will, deuce take you," cried the man with the fiery-red beard. But Zazubrina could not contain himself. Around him roared the senseless laughter of all these grey people, and Zazubrina knew that he, and he alone, was the occasion of all their laughter. In all his gestures, in every grimace of his mobile comic face, this consciousness manifestly proclaimed itself, and his whole body twitched with the enjoyment of his triumph. He had already seized the kitten by the head, and wiping from its fur the superfluous paint, with the ecstasy of the artist conscious of his victory over the mob, never ceased dancing and improvising: "My dear little brothers, In the calendar let us look, Here's a kitten to be christened, And no name for it in the book." Everything laughed around the mob of prisoners, intoxicated by this senseless mirth. The sun laughed upon the panes of glass in the iron-grated windows. The blue sky smiled down upon the courtyard of the prison, and even its dirty old walls seemed to be smiling with the smile of beings who feel obliged to stifle all mirth, however it may run riot within them. From behind the gratings of the windows of the women's department the faces of women looked down upon the yard, they also laughed, and their teeth glistened in the sun. Everything around was transformed, as it were, threw off its dull, grey tone, so full of anguish and weariness, and awoke to merriment, impregnated with that purifying laughter which, like the sun, made the very dirt look more decent. Placing the green kitten on the grass, little islets of which, springing up between the stones, variegated the prison-yard, Zazubrina, excited, well-nigh blown, and covered with sweat, still, continued his wild dance.