Suddenly an unexpected and offensive thought came into his mind: Did the blunder perhaps consist in his playing chess simply because he wanted to distract his attention from the execution and thus shield himself against the fear of death which is apparently inevitable in every person condemned to death?
"No.

What for ?" he answered coldly and closed calmly his imaginary chessboard.

And with the same concentration with which he had played chess, he tried to give himself an account of the horror and the helplessness of his situation.

As though he were going through a strict examination, he looked over the cell, trying not to let anything escape.
He counted the hours that remained until the execution, made for himself an approximate and quite exact picture of the execution itself and shrugged his shoulders.
"Well ?" he said to some one half-questioningly.

"Here it is.