It all began the moment he uttered the fatal word. Which he did although his friend Jakov had warned him many times that this was a word he wasn’t to say. And yet he did. As if it had just flown out of him, the word was shot out, completely against his will. There were all kinds of things in his voice at the moment he spoke the forbidden word. There was wonder, some kind of indignation, protest, fear, jealousy, even a little defiant anger. This latter he did not even admit to himself at the time, only later, when he was thinking everything over, and he recalled, that while speaking the forbidden word, he had even been derisive, had put himself in the position of a warrior, a fencer, putting his sword arm and his right foot forward at the same time, being thus ready for attack.