The judges were astonished at Stepan’s wonderful coolness in narrating the story of his crime⁠—how the peasants fell upon Ivan Mironov, and how he had given the final stroke. Stepan actually did not see anything particularly revolting in this murder. During his military service he had been ordered on one occasion to shoot a soldier, and, now with regard to Ivan Mironov, he saw nothing loathsome in it. “A man shot is a dead man⁠—that’s all. It was him today, it might be me tomorrow,” he thought. Stepan was only sentenced to one year’s imprisonment, which was a mild punishment for what he had done. His peasant’s dress was taken away from him and put in the prison stores, and he had a prison suit and felt boots given to him instead. Stepan had never had much respect for the authorities, but now he became quite convinced that all the chiefs, all the fine folk, all except the Czar⁠—who alone had pity on the peasants and was just⁠—all were robbers who suck blood out of the people. All he heard from the deported convicts, and those sentenced to hard labour, with whom he had made friends in prisons, confirmed him in his views.