On the fortress where the condemned terrorists were imprisoned there
was a steeple with an old-fashioned clock upon it. At every hour, at
every half-hour, and at every quarter-hour the clock rang out in
long-drawn, mournful chimes, slowly melting high in the air, like the
distant and plaintive call of migrating birds. In the daytime, this
strange and sad music was lost in the noise of the city, of the wide
and crowded street which passed near the fortress. The cars buzzed
along, the hoofs of the horses beat upon the pavements, the rocking
automobiles honked in the distance, peasant izvozchiks had come
especially from the outskirts of the city for the Shrovetide season and
the tinkling of the bells upon the necks of their little horses filled
the air. The prattle of voices—an intoxicated, merry Shrovetide prattle
of voices arose everywhere. And in the midst of these various noises
there was the young thawing spring, the muddy pools on the meadows, the
trees of the squares which had suddenly become black. From the sea a
warm breeze was blowing in broad, moist gusts. It was almost as if one
could have seen the tiny fresh particles of air carried away, merged
into the free, endless expanse of the atmosphere—could have heard them
laughing in their flight.
At night the street grew quiet in the lonely light of the large,
electric sun. And then, the enormous fortress, within whose walls there
was not a single light, passed into darkness and silence, separating
itself from the ever living, stirring city by a wall of silence,
motionlessness and darkness. Then it was that the strokes of the clock
became audible. A strange melody, foreign to earth, was slowly and
mournfully born and died out up in the heights. It was born again;
deceiving the ear, it rang plaintively and softly—it broke off—and rang
again. Like large, transparent, glassy drops, hours and minutes
descended from an unknown height into a metallic, softly resounding
bell.
This was the only sound that reached the cells, by day and night, where
the condemned remained in solitary confinement. Through the roof,
through the thickness of the stone walls, it penetrated, stirring the
silence—it passed unnoticed, to return again, also unnoticed. Sometimes
they awaited it in despair, living from one sound to the next, trusting
the silence no longer. Only important criminals were sent to this
prison. There were special rules there, stern, grim and severe, like
the corner of the fortress wall, and if there be nobility in cruelty,
then the dull, dead, solemnly mute silence, which caught the slightest
rustle and breathing, was noble.
And in this solemn silence, broken by the mournful tolling of the
departing minutes, separated from all that lives, five human beings,
two women and three men, waited for the advent of night, of dawn and
the execution, and all of them prepared for it, each in his or her own
way.