And she was seized with sudden joy. There were no doubts, no hesitations—she was received into their midst—she entered justified the ranks of those noble people who always ascend to heaven through fires, tortures and executions. Bright peace and tranquillity and endless, calmly radiant happiness! It was as if she had already departed from earth and was nearing the unknown sun of truth and life, and was incorporeally soaring in its light.
“And that is—Death? That is not Death!” thought Musya blissfully.
And if scientists, philosophers and hangmen from the world over should come to her cell, spreading before her books, scalpels, axes and nooses, and were to attempt to prove to her that Death existed, that a human being dies and is killed, that there is no immortality, they would only surprise her. How could there be no deathlessness, since she was already deathless? Of what other deathlessness, of what other death, could there be a question, since she was already dead and immortal, alive in death, as she had been dead in life?
And if a coffin were brought into her cell with her own decomposing body in it, and she were told:
“Look! That is you!”
She would look and would answer:
“No, it is not I.”
And if they should attempt to convince her, frightening her by the ominous sight of her own decomposed body, that it was she—she, Musya, would answer with a smile:
“No. You think that it is I, but it isn’t. I am the one you are speaking to; how can I be the other one?”
“But you will die and become like that.”