“My friend, let it be Siberia, Archangel, loss of rights—if I must perish, let me perish! But … I am afraid of something else.” (Again whispering, a scared face, mystery.)
“But of what? Of what?”
“They’ll flog me,” he pronounced, looking at me with a face of despair.
“Who’ll flog you? What for? Where?” I cried, feeling alarmed that he was going out of his mind.
“Where? Why there … where ‘that’s’ done.”
“But where is it done?”
“Eh, cher,” he whispered almost in my ear. “The floor suddenly gives way under you, you drop half through.… Every one knows that.”
“Legends!” I cried, guessing what he meant. “Old tales. Can you have believed them till now?” I laughed.
“Tales! But there must be foundation for them; flogged men tell no tales. I’ve imagined it ten thousand times.”
“But you, why you? You’ve done nothing, you know.”