But the cold water began to produce its effect in bringing him to his senses. To help the effect, the warden on duty, the same old man, administered medicine to Yanson in the form of several blows upon the head. And this sensation of life returning to him really drove the fear of death away. Yanson opened his eyes, and then, his mind utterly confused, he slept soundly for the remainder of the night. He lay on his back, with mouth open, and snored loudly, and between his lashes, which were not tightly closed, his flat, dead eyes, which were upturned so that the pupil did not show, could be seen. Later, everything in the world—day and night, footsteps, voices, the soup of sour cabbage, produced in him a continuous terror, plunging him into a state of savage uncomprehending astonishment. His weak mind was unable to combine these two things which so monstrously contradicted each other—the bright day, the odor and taste of cabbage—and the fact that two days later he must die. He did not think of anything. He did not even count the hours, but simply stood in mute stupefaction before this contradiction which tore his brain in two. And he became evenly pale, neither white nor redder in parts, and appeared to be calm. Only he ate nothing and ceased sleeping altogether. He sat all night long on a stool, his legs crossed under him, in fright. Or he walked about in his cell, quietly, stealthily, and sleepily looking about him on all sides. His mouth was half-open all the time, as though from incessant astonishment, and before taking the most ordinary thing into his hands, he would examine it stupidly for a long time, and would take it distrustfully. When he became thus, the wardens as well as the sentinel who watched him through the little window, ceased paying further attention to him. This was the customary condition of prisoners, and reminded the wardens of cattle being led to slaughter after a staggering blow. “Now he is stunned, now he will feel nothing until his very death,” said the warden, looking at him with experienced eyes. “Ivan! Do you hear? Ivan!” “I must not be hanged,” answered Yanson, in a dull voice, and his lower jaw again drooped. “You should not have committed murder. You would not be hanged then,” answered the chief warden, a young but very important-looking man with medals on his chest. “You committed murder, yet you do not want to be hanged?” “He wants to kill human beings without paying for it. Fool! fool!” said another. “I don’t want to be hanged,” said Yanson. “Well, my friend, you may want it or not, that’s your affair,” replied the chief warden indifferently. “Instead of talking nonsense, you had better arrange your affairs. You still have something.” “He has nothing. One shirt and a suit of clothes. And a fur cap! A sport!” Thus time passed until Thursday. And on Thursday, at midnight a number of people entered Yanson’s cell, and one man, with shoulder-straps, said: “Well, get ready. We must go.”