lives, and in three minutes there would be something, some person or thing—but who? and where? He wanted to resolve it all in those two minutes! There was a church nearby, and the top of the cathedral with its gilded dome shone in the bright sun. He remembered gazing with terrible fixity at that dome and the rays shining from it: it seemed to him that those rays were his new nature and in three minutes he would somehow merge with them . . . The ignorance of and loathing for this new thing that would be and would come presently were terrible; yet he said that nothing was more oppressive for him at that moment than the constant thought: 'What if I were not to die! What if life were given back to me—what infinity! And it would all be mine! Then I'd turn each minute into a whole age, I'd lose nothing, I'd reckon up every minute separately, I'd let nothing be wasted!' He said that in the end this thought turned into such anger in him that he wished they would hurry up and shoot him."

The prince suddenly fell silent; everyone waited for him to go on and arrive at a conclusion.

"Have you finished?" asked Aglaya.

"What? Yes," said the prince, coming out of a momentary pensiveness.

"Why did you tell us about that?"

"Just ... I remembered ... to make conversation . . ."

"You're very fragmentary," observed Alexandra. "You probably wanted to conclude, Prince, that there's not a single moment that can be valued in kopecks, and that five minutes are sometimes dearer than a treasure. That is all very praiseworthy, but, forgive me, what ever happened to the friend who told you all those horrors ... his punishment was changed, which means he was granted that 'infinite life.' Well, what did he do with so much wealth afterwards? Did he live 'reckoning up' every minute?"

"Oh, no, he told me himself—I asked him about it—he didn't live that way at all and lost many, many minutes."

"Well, so, there's experience for you, so it's impossible to live really 'keeping a reckoning.' There's always some reason why it's impossible."

"Yes, for some reason it's impossible," the prince repeated. "I thought so myself. . . But still it's somehow hard to believe . . ."

"That is, you think you can live more intelligently than everyone else?" asked Aglaya.

"Yes, I've sometimes thought so."

"And you still do?"

"And ... I still do," the prince replied, looking at Aglaya, as before, with a quiet and even timid smile; but he immediately laughed again and looked at her merrily.

"How modest!" said Aglaya, almost vexed.

"But how brave you all are, though. You're laughing, but I was so struck by everything in his story that I dreamed about it later, precisely about those five minutes . . ."

Once again he looked around keenly and gravely at his listeners.

"You're not angry with me for something?" he asked suddenly, as if in perplexity, and yet looking straight into their eyes.

"For what?" the three girls cried in astonishment.

"That it's as if I keep teaching . . ."

They all laughed.

"If you're angry, don't be," he said. "I myself know that I've lived less than others and understand less about life than anyone. Maybe I sometimes speak very strangely ..."

And he became decidedly embarrassed.

"Since you say you were happy, it means you lived more, not less; why do you pretend and apologize?" Aglaya began sternly and carpingly. "And please don't worry about lecturing us, there's nothing there to make you triumphant. With your quietism²³ one could fill a hundred years of life with happiness. Show you an execution or show you a little finger, you'll draw an equally praiseworthy idea from both and be left feeling pleased besides. It's a way to live."

"Why you're so angry I don't understand," picked up Mrs. Epanchin, who had long been watching the faces of the speakers, "and what you're talking about I also cannot understand. What little finger, what is this nonsense? The prince speaks beautifully, only a little sadly. Why do you discourage him? He laughed at the beginning, but now he's quite crestfallen."

"Never mind, maman. But it's a pity you haven't seen an execution, there's one thing I'd ask you."

"I have seen an execution," the prince replied.

"You have?" cried Aglaya. "I must have guessed it! That crowns the whole thing. If you have, how can you say you lived happily the whole time? Well, isn't it true what I told you?"

"Were there executions in your village?" asked Adelaida.

"I saw it in Lyons, I went there with Schneider, he took me. I arrived and happened right on to it."

"So, what, did you like it very much? Was it very instructive? Useful?" Aglaya went on asking.

"I didn't like it at all, and I was a bit ill afterwards, but I confess I watched as if I was riveted to it, I couldn't tear my eyes away."

"I, too, would be unable to tear my eyes away," said Aglaya.

"They dislike it very much there when women come to watch, and even write about these women afterwards in the newspapers."

"Meaning that, since they find it's no business for women, they want to say by that (and thus justify) that it is a business for men. I congratulate them for their logic. And you think the same way, of course?"

"Tell us about the execution," Adelaida interrupted.

"I'd be very reluctant to now . . ." the prince became confused and seemed to frown.

"It looks as if you begrudge telling us," Aglaya needled him.

"No, it's because I already told about that same execution earlier."

"Whom did you tell?"

"Your valet, while I was waiting . . ."

"What valet?" came from all sides.

"The one who sits in the anteroom, with gray hair and a reddish face. I was sitting in the anteroom waiting to see Ivan Fyodorovich."

"That's odd," observed Mrs. Epanchin.

"The prince is a democrat," Aglaya snapped. "Well, if you told it to Alexei, you can't refuse us."

"I absolutely want to hear it," repeated Adelaida.

"Earlier, in fact," the prince turned to her, becoming somewhat animated again (it seemed he became animated very quickly and trustingly), "in fact it occurred to me, when you asked me for a subject for a picture, to give you this subject: to portray the face of a condemned man a minute before the stroke of the guillotine, when he's still standing on the scaffold, before he lies down on the plank."

"What? Just the face?" asked Adelaida. "That would be a strange subject, and what sort of picture would it make?"

"I don't know, why not?" the prince insisted warmly. "I recently saw a picture like that in Basel.²⁴ I'd like very much to tell you . . . Someday I'll tell you about it... it struck me greatly."

"Be sure to tell us about the Basel picture later," said Adelaida, "but now explain to me about the picture of this execution. Can you say how you imagine it yourself? How should the face be portrayed? As just a face? What sort of face?"

"It was exactly one minute before his death," the prince began with perfect readiness, carried away by his recollection, and apparently forgetting at once about everything else, "the very moment when he had climbed the little stairway and just stepped onto the scaffold. He glanced in my direction; I looked at his face and understood everything . . . But how can one talk about it! I'd be terribly, terribly glad if you or someone else could portray that! Better if it were you! I thought then that it would be a useful painting. You know, here you have to imagine everything that went before, everything, everything. He lived in prison and expected it would be at least another week till the execution; he somehow calculated the time for the usual formalities, that the paper still had to go somewhere and would only be ready in a week. And then suddenly for some reason the procedure was shortened. At five o'clock in the morning he was asleep. It was the end of October; at five o'clock it's still cold and dark. The prison warden came in quietly, with some guards, and cautiously touched his shoulder. The man sat up, leaned on his elbow—saw a light: 'What's this?' 'The execution's at ten.' Still sleepy, he didn't believe it, started objecting that the paper would be ready in a week, but when he woke up completely, he stopped arguing and fell silent—so they described it—then said: 'All the same, it's hard so suddenly . . .' and fell silent again, and wouldn't say anything after that. Then three or four hours were spent on the well-known things: the priest, breakfast, for which he was given wine, coffee, and beef (now, isn't that a mockery? You'd think it was very cruel, yet, on the other hand, by God, these innocent people do it in purity of heart and are sure of their loving kindness), then the toilette (do you know what a criminal's toilette is?), and finally they drive him through the city to the scaffold ... I think that here, too, while they're driving him, it seems to him that he still has an endless time to live. I imagine he probably thought on the way: 'It's still long, there are still three streets left to live; I'll get to the end of this one, then there's still that one, and the one after it, with the bakery on the right . . . it's still a long way to the bakery!' People, shouting, noise all around him, ten thousand faces, ten thousand pairs of eyes—all that must be endured, and above all the thought: 'There are ten thousand of them, and none of them is being executed, it's me they're executing!' Well, that's all the preliminaries. A little stairway leads up to the scaffold; there, facing the stairway, he suddenly burst into tears, and yet he was a strong and manly fellow and was said to be a great villain. A priest was