And he did everything well: he was an excellent sailor, an expert shot with the revolver. He was as faithful in friendship as in love, and a fanatic believer in the “word of honor.” His comrades laughed at him, saying that if the most notorious spy told him upon his word of honor that he was not a spy, Sergey would believe him and would shake hands with him as with any comrade. He had one fault,—he was convinced that he could sing well, whereas in fact he had no ear for music and even sang the revolutionary songs out of tune, and felt offended when his friends laughed at him. “Either you are all asses, or I am an ass,” he would declare seriously and even angrily. And all his friends as seriously declared: “You are an ass. We can tell by your voice.” But, as is sometimes the case with good people, he was perhaps liked more for this little foible than for his good qualities. He feared death so little and thought of it so little that on the fatal morning, before leaving the house of Tanya Kovalchuk, he was the only one who had breakfasted properly, with an appetite. He drank two glasses of tea with milk, and a whole five-copeck roll of bread. Then he glanced at Werner’s untouched bread and said: “Why don’t you eat? Eat. We must brace up.” “I don’t feel like eating.” “Then I’ll eat it. May I?” “You have a fine appetite, Seryozha.” Instead of answering, Sergey, his mouth full, began to sing in a dull voice, out of tune: “Hostile whirlwinds are blowing over us...” After the arrest he at first grew sad; the work had not been done well, they had failed; but then he thought: “There is something else now that must be done well—and that is, to die,” and he cheered up again. And however strange it may seem, beginning with the second morning in the fortress, he commenced devoting himself to gymnastics according to the unusually rational system of a certain German named Müller, which absorbed his interest. He undressed himself completely and, to the alarm and astonishment of the guard who watched him, he carefully went through all the prescribed eighteen exercises. The fact that the guard watched him and was apparently astonished, pleased him as a propagandist of the Müller system; and although he knew that he would get no answer he nevertheless spoke to the eye staring in the little window: “It’s a good system, my friend, it braces you up. It should be introduced in your regiment,” he shouted convincingly and kindly, so as not to frighten the soldier, not suspecting that the guard considered him a harmless lunatic. The fear of death came over him gradually. It was as if somebody were striking his heart a powerful blow with the fist from below. This sensation was rather painful than terrible. Then the sensation was forgotten, but it returned again a few hours later, and each time it grew more intense and of longer duration, and thus it began to assume vague outlines of some great, even unbearable fear.