Klimkov sat down, bent over, and put a piece of ice in his mouth. The next instant he jumped to his feet, and clambered up the steep slope of the ravine. Here he removed his belt and suspenders, and began to tie them together, at the same time carefully examining the branches over his head. "I don't have to take my overcoat off," he reflected without self-pity. "The heavier, the quicker." He was in a hurry, his fingers trembled, and his shoulders involuntarily rose, as if to conceal his neck. In his head a timorous thought kept knocking. "I won't have time. I'll be too late." A train passed along the edge of the woods. The trees hummed in displeasure, and the ground quivered. The white vapor threaded its way between the branches. It stole through the air, and melted away, as though to get a look at this man, and then disappear from his eyes. Titmice came flying and whistling boldly. They gleamed in the dark nets of the branches, and their quick bustle hastened the movements of Yevsey's cold and disobedient fingers. He made a slipknot in the strap, threw it over a branch, and tugged at it. It was firm. Then, just as hurriedly, he began to make a slipknot in his suspenders, which he had twisted into a braid. When everything was ready, he heaved a sigh. "Now I ought to say my prayers." But no prayer came to him. He thought for a few seconds. The words flashed up, but were instantly extinguished, without forming themselves into a prayer. "Rayisa knew my fate," he recalled unexpectedly. Thrusting his head into the noose, he said quietly, simply, and without a quiver in his breast: "In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost--" He pushed the ground with his feet, and jumped into the air, doubling his legs under him. There was a painful tug at his ears, a strange inward blow hit his head, and stunned him. He fell. His entire body struck the hard earth, turned over, and rolled down the declivity. His arms caught in the roots of trees, his head knocked against trunks. He lost consciousness. When he recovered his senses, he found himself sitting at the bottom of the ravine, the torn suspenders dangling over his breast. His trousers were burst, his scratched, blood-stained knees looked through the cloth pitifully. His body was a mass of pain, especially his neck; and the cold seemed to be flaying his skin. Throwing himself on his back Yevsey looked up the incline. There under a white birch branch the strap swung in the air like a thin serpent, and lured him to itself. "I can't," he said to himself in despair. "I can't--nothing--I don't know how." He began to cry fine tears of impotence and insult. He lay with his back on the ground, and through his tears saw over him the one-toned dim sky, streaked by the dry designs of the dark branches.