Through the bars of the double line of windows on the second and the third stories peer the murky faces and towsled heads of some of the inmates. One of the latter spits his furthest into the yard--evidently with the intention of hitting myself: but all his efforts prove vain. Another one shouts with a mordant expletive: "Hi, you! Why do you keep tramping up and down like an old hen? Hold up your head!" Meanwhile the inmates continue to intone in concert a strange chant which is as tangled as a skein of wool after serving as a plaything for a kitten's prolonged game of sport. Sadly the chant meanders, wavers, to a high, wailing note. Then, as it were, it soars yet higher towards the dull, murky sky, breaks suddenly into a snarl, and, growling like a wild beast in terror, dies away to give place to a refrain which coils, trickles forth from between the bars of the windows until it has permeated the free, torrid air. As I listen to that refrain, long familiar to me, it seems to voice something intelligible, and agitates my soul almost to a sense of agony.... Presently, while pacing up and down in the shadow of the building, I happen to glance towards the line of windows. Glued to the framework of one of the iron window-squares, I can discern a blue-eyed face. Overgrown with an untidy sable beard it is, as well as stamped with a look of perpetually grieved surprise. "That must be Konev," I say to myself aloud. Konev it is--Konev of the well-remembered eyes. Even at this moment they are regarding me with puckered attention. I throw around me a hasty glance. My own warder is dozing on a shady bench near the entrance. Two more warders are engaged in throwing dice. A fourth is superintending the pumping of water by two convicts, and superciliously marking time for their lever with the formula, "Mashkam, dashkam! Dashkam, mashkam!" I move towards the wall. "Is that you, Konev?" is my inquiry. "It is," he mutters as he thrusts his head a little further through the grating. "Yes, Konev I am, but who you are I have not a notion." "What are you here for?" "For a matter of base coin, though, to be truthful, I am here accidentally, without genuine cause." The warder rouses himself, and, with his keys jingling like a set of fetters, utters drowsily the command: "Do not stand still. Also, move further from the wall. To approach it is forbidden." "But it is so hot in the middle of the yard, sir!" "Everywhere it is hot," retorts the man reprovingly, and his head subsides again. From above comes the whispered query: "Who ARE you?" "Well, do you remember Tatiana, the woman from Riazan?" "DO I remember her?" Konev's voice has in it a touch of subdued resentment. "DO I remember her? Why, I was tried in court together with her!" "Together with HER? Was she too sentenced for the passing of base coin?" "Yes. Why should she not have been? She was merely the victim of an accident, even as I was."