“And imagine how that Gania annoys me! He has developed the idea⁠—or pretends to believe⁠—that in all probability three or four others who heard my confession will die before I do. There’s an idea for you⁠—and all this by way of consoling me! Ha! ha! ha! In the first place they haven’t died yet; and in the second, if they did die⁠—all of them⁠—what would be the satisfaction to me in that? He judges me by himself. But he goes further, he actually pitches into me because, as he declares, ‘any decent fellow’ would die quietly, and that ‘all this’ is mere egotism on my part. He doesn’t see what refinement of egotism it is on his own part⁠—and at the same time, what ox-like coarseness! Have you ever read of the death of one Stepan Gleboff, in the eighteenth century? I read of it yesterday by chance.”

“Who was he?”

“He was impaled on a stake in the time of Peter.”