Read "The Old House" by Fyodor Sologub online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Sofia Alexandrovna, ignoring the interruption, continues:
"Why should I really go to my death boldly and resolutely? Is it not all the same? I shall die in the courtyard, in the dark of night. Whether I die boldly, or weep like a coward, or beg for mercy, or resist the executioner -- is it not all the same? No one will know how I died. I shall face death alone. Why should I really suffer this wild anguish? I will raise up my voice to wail and to weep, and I will shake the whole gaol with my despairing cries, and I will awake the town, the so-called free town, which is only a larger gaol -- so that I shall not suffer alone, but that others shall share in my last agony, in my last dread. But no, I won't do that. It is my fate to die alone."