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He crept on tiptoe to the door, stealthily opened it and began

listening on the staircase. His heart beat terribly. But all was

quiet on the stairs as if everyone was asleep.... It seemed to

him strange and monstrous that he could have slept in such

forgetfulness from the previous day and had done nothing, had

prepared nothing yet.... And meanwhile perhaps it had struck six.

And his drowsiness and stupefaction were followed by an

extraordinary, feverish, as it were distracted haste. But the

preparations to be made were few. He concentrated all his

energies on thinking of everything and forgetting nothing; and

his heart kept beating and thumping so that he could hardly

breathe. First he had to make a noose and sew it into his

overcoat--a work of a moment. He rummaged under his pillow and

picked out amongst the linen stuffed away under it, a worn out,

old unwashed shirt. From its rags he tore a long strip, a couple

of inches wide and about sixteen inches long.