The Seven Who Were Hanged | Page 5

he was immortal, that he would never die. And, feeling himself
again strong and wise amidst the herd of fools who had so stupidly and
impudently broken into the mystery of the future, he began to think of
the bliss of ignorance, and his thoughts were the painful thoughts of an

old, sick man who had gone through endless experience. It was not
given to any living being-man or beast -to know the day and hour of
death. Here had he been ill not long ago and the physicians told him
that he must expect the end, that he should make his final
arrangements-but he had not believed them and he remained alive. In
his youth he had become entangled in an affair and had resolved to end
his life; he had even loaded the revolver, had "written his letters, and
had fixed upon 'the hour for suicide-but before the very end he had
suddenly changed his mind. It would always be thus-at the very last
moment something would change, an unexpected accident would
befall-no one could tell when he would die.
"At one o'clock in the afternoon, your Excellency!" those kind asses
had said to him, and although they had told him of it only that death
might he averted, the mere knowledge of its possibility at a certain hour
again filled him with horror. It was probable that some day he should
be assassinated, but it would not happen to-morrow-it would not
happen to-morrow-and he could sleep undisturbed, as if he were really
immortal. Fools-they did not know what a great law they had dislodged,
what an abyss they had opened, when they said in their idiotic kindness:
"At one o'clock in the afternoon, your Excellency!"
"No, not at one o'clock in the afternoon, your Excellency, but no one
knows when. No one knows when! What?"
"Nothing," answered Silence, "nothing."
"But you did say something."
"Nothing, nonsense. I say: to-morrow, at one o'clock in the afternoon!"
There was a sudden, acute pain in his heart-and he understood that he
would have neither sleep, nor peace, nor joy until that accursed black
hour standing out of the dial should have passed. Only the shadow of
the knowledge of something which no living being could know stood
there in the corner, and that was enough to darken the world and
envelop him with the impenetrable gloom of horror. The once disturbed
fear of death diffused through his body, penetrated into his bones.

He no longer feared the murderers of the next day-they had vanished,
they had been forgotten, they had mingled with the crowd of hostile
faces and incidents which surrounded his life. He now feared
something sudden and inevitable-an apoplectic stroke, heart failure,
some foolish thin little vessel which might suddenly fail to withstand
the pressure of the blood and might burst like a tight glove upon
swollen fingers.
His short, thick neck seemed terrible to him. It became unbearable for
him to look upon his short, swollen ringers-to feel how short they were
and how they were filled with the moisture of death. And if before,
when it was dark, he had had to stir in order not to resemble a corpse,
now in the bright, cold, inimical, dreadful light he was so filled with
horror that he could not move in order to get a cigarette or to ring for
some one. His nerves were giving way. Each one of them seemed as if
it were a bent wire, at the top of which there was a small head with mad,
wide-open frightened eyes and a convulsively gaping, speechless
mouth. He could not draw his breath.
Suddenly in the darkness, amidst the dust and cobwebs somewhere
upon the ceiling, an electric bell came to life. The small, metallic
tongue, agitatedly, in terror, kept striking the edge of the ringing cap,
became silent-and again quivered in an unceasing, frightened din. His
Excellency was ringing his bell in his own room.
People began to run. Here and there, in the shadows upon the walls,
lamps flared up -there were not enough of them to give light, but there
were enough to cast shadows. The shadows appeared everywhere; they
rose in the corners, they stretched across the ceiling; tremulously
clinging to each and every elevation, they covered the walls. And it was
hard to understand where all these innumerable, deformed silent
shadows- voiceless souls of voiceless objects-had been before.
A deep, trembling voice said something loudly. Then the doctor was
hastily summoned by telephone; the dignitary was collapsing. The wife
of his Excellency was also called.
CHAPTER II

CONDEMNED TO BE HANGED
Everything befell as the police had foretold. Four terrorists, three men
and a woman, armed with bombs, infernal machines and revolvers,
were seized at the very entrance of the house, and