“Into Thy hands I commit my spirit,” thought Svetlogoúb, recalling the words of the Gospels.
His spirit did not struggle against death, but his strong young body would not accept it, would not submit, and wanted to rebel.
He wished to shout and to tear himself away, but at that very moment he felt a push, lost his equilibrium, felt animal terror and choking, and a noise in his head, and then everything vanished.
Svetlogoúb’s body hung swinging by the cord. His shoulders twice rose and fell.
After waiting a minute or two, the executioner, frowning gloomily, put both hands on the shoulders of the corpse and pushed it downwards with a powerful movement. And the corpse became perfectly still, except for a slow swinging movement of the big doll, with the unnaturally forward-stooping head inside the sack and the outstretched legs in prison stockings.
Descending from the scaffold, the executioner told his chief that the body might now be taken down and buried.
In an hour’s time the body was taken down from the gallows, and removed to the unconsecrated cemetery. The executioner had done what he wished and what he had undertaken to do. But it had not been an easy task to fulfil. Svetlogoúb’s words, “And are you not sorry for me?” would not leave his head. He was a murderer and a convict, and the post of hangman gave him comparative freedom and luxury; but from that day he refused to fulfil the duties he had undertaken, and drank not only all the money he had received for the execution, but also his comparatively good clothing, and finished by being put into a penitentiary and afterwards into the hospital.