The Forged Coupon, and Other Stories-6

Once more her look scared Stepan. He dropped his eyes.

“Where is your money?” he asked, without raising his face.

She did not answer.

“Where is the money?” asked Stepan again, showing her his knife.

“How can you . . .” she said.

“You will see how.”

Stepan came close to her, in order to seize her hands and prevent her

struggling with him, but she did not even try to lift her arms or offer

any resistance; she pressed her hands to her chest, and sighed heavily.

“Oh, what a great sin!” she cried. “How can you! Have mercy on yourself.

To destroy somebody’s soul . . . and worse, your own! . . .”

Stepan could not stand her voice any longer, and drew his knife sharply

across her throat. “Stop that talk!” he said. She fell back with a hoarse

cry, and the pillow was stained with blood. He turned away, and went round

the rooms in order to collect all he thought worth taking. Having made a

bundle of the most valuable things, he lighted a cigarette, sat down for a

while, brushed his clothes, and left the house. He thought this murder

would not matter to him more than those he had committed before; but

before he got a night’s lodging, he felt suddenly so exhausted that he

could not walk any farther. He stepped down into the gutter and remained

lying there the rest of the night, and the next day and the next night.

PART SECOND

I

THE whole time he was lying in the gutter Stepan saw continually before

his eyes the thin, kindly, and frightened face of Maria Semenovna, and

seemed to hear her voice. “How can you?” she went on saying in his

imagination, with her peculiar lisping voice. Stepan saw over again and

over again before him all he had done to her. In horror he shut his eyes,

and shook his hairy head, to drive away these thoughts and recollections.

For a moment he would get rid of them, but in their place horrid black

faces with red eyes appeared and frightened him continuously. They grinned

at him, and kept repeating, “Now you have done away with her you must do

away with yourself, or we will not leave you alone.” He opened his eyes,

and again he saw HER and heard her voice; and felt an immense pity for her

and a deep horror and disgust with himself. Once more he shut his eyes,

and the black faces reappeared. Towards the evening of the next day he

rose and went, with hardly any strength left, to a public-house. There he

ordered a drink, and repeated his demands over and over again, but no

quantity of liquor could make him intoxicated. He was sitting at a table,

and swallowed silently one glass after another.

A police officer came in. “Who are you?” he asked Stepan.

“I am the man who murdered all the Dobrotvorov people last night,” he

answered.

He was arrested, bound with ropes, and brought to the nearest

police-station; the next day he was transferred to the prison in the town.

The inspector of the prison recognised him as an old inmate, and a very

turbulent one; and, hearing that he had now become a real criminal,

accosted him very harshly.

“You had better be quiet here,” he said in a hoarse voice, frowning, and

protruding his lower jaw. “The moment you don’t behave, I’ll flog you to

death! Don’t try to escape—I will see to that!”

“I have no desire to escape,” said Stepan, dropping his eyes. “I

surrendered of my own free will.”

“Shut up! You must look straight into your superior’s eyes when you talk

to him,” cried the inspector, and struck Stepan with his fist under the

jaw.

At that moment Stepan again saw the murdered woman before him, and heard

her voice; he did not pay attention, therefore, to the inspector’s words.

“What?” he asked, coming to his senses when he felt the blow on his face.

“Be off! Don’t pretend you don’t hear.”

The inspector expected Stepan to be violent, to talk to the other

prisoners, to make attempts to escape from prison. But nothing of the kind

ever happened. Whenever the guard or the inspector himself looked into his

cell through the hole in the door, they saw Stepan sitting on a bag filled

with straw, holding his head with his hands and whispering to himself. On

being brought before the examining magistrate charged with the inquiry

into his case, he did not behave like an ordinary convict. He was very

absent-minded, hardly listening to the questions; but when he heard what

was asked, he answered truthfully, causing the utmost perplexity to the

magistrate, who, accustomed as he was to the necessity of being very

clever and very cunning with convicts, felt a strange sensation just as if

he were lifting up his foot to ascend a step and found none. Stepan told

him the story of all his murders; and did it frowning, with a set look, in

a quiet, businesslike voice, trying to recollect all the circumstances of

his crimes. “He stepped out of the house,” said Stepan, telling the tale

of his first murder, “and stood barefooted at the door; I hit him, and he

just groaned; I went to his wife, . . .” And so on.

One day the magistrate, visiting the prison cells, asked Stepan whether

there was anything he had to complain of, or whether he had any wishes

that might be granted him. Stepan said he had no wishes whatever, and had

nothing to complain of the way he was treated in prison. The magistrate,

on leaving him, took a few steps in the foul passage, then stopped and

asked the governor who had accompanied him in his visit how this prisoner

was behaving.

“I simply wonder at him,” said the governor, who was very pleased with

Stepan, and spoke kindly of him. “He has now been with us about two

months, and could be held up as a model of good behaviour. But I am afraid

he is plotting some mischief. He is a daring man, and exceptionally

strong.”

II

DURING the first month in prison Stepan suffered from the same agonising

vision. He saw the grey wall of his cell, he heard the sounds of the

prison; the noise of the cell below him, where a number of convicts were

confined together; the striking of the prison clock; the steps of the

sentry in the passage; but at the same time he saw HER with that kindly

face which conquered his heart the very first time he met her in the

street, with that thin, strongly-marked neck, and he heard her soft,

lisping, pathetic voice: “To destroy somebody’s soul . . . and, worst of

all, your own. . . . How can you? . . .”

After a while her voice would die away, and then black faces would appear.

They would appear whether he had his eyes open or shut. With his closed

eyes he saw them more distinctly. When he opened his eyes they vanished

for a moment, melting away into the walls and the door; but after a while

they reappeared and surrounded him from three sides, grinning at him and

saying over and over: “Make an end! Make an end! Hang yourself! Set

yourself on fire!” Stepan shook all over when he heard that, and tried to

say all the prayers he knew: “Our Lady” or “Our Father.” At first this

seemed to help. In saying his prayers he began to recollect his whole

life; his father, his mother, the village, the dog “Wolf,” the old

grandfather lying on the stove, the bench on which the children used to

play; then the girls in the village with their songs, his horses and how

they had been stolen, and how the thief was caught and how he killed him

with a stone. He recollected also the first prison he was in and his

leaving it, and the fat innkeeper, the carter’s wife and the children.

Then again SHE came to his mind and again he was terrified. Throwing his

prison overcoat off his shoulders, he jumped out of bed, and, like a wild

animal in a cage, began pacing up and down his tiny cell, hastily turning

round when he had reached the damp walls. Once more he tried to pray, but

it was of no use now.

The autumn came with its long nights. One evening when the wind whistled

and howled in the pipes, Stepan, after he had paced up and down his cell

for a long time, sat down on his bed. He felt he could not struggle any

more; the black demons had overpowered him, and he had to submit. For some

time he had been looking at the funnel of the oven. If he could fix on the

knob of its lid a loop made of thin shreds of narrow linen straps it would

hold. . . . But he would have to manage it very cleverly. He set to work,

and spent two days in making straps out of the linen bag on which he

slept. When the guard came into the cell he covered the bed with his

overcoat. He tied the straps with big knots and made them double, in order

that they might be strong enough to hold his weight. During these

preparations he was free from tormenting visions. When the straps were

ready he made a slip-knot out of them, and put it round his neck, stood up

in his bed, and hanged himself. But at the very moment that his tongue

began to protrude the straps got loose, and he fell down. The guard rushed

in at the noise. The doctor was called in, Stepan was brought to the

infirmary. The next day he recovered, and was removed from the infirmary,

no more to solitary confinement, but to share the common cell with other

prisoners.

In the common cell he lived in the company of twenty men, but felt as if

he were quite alone. He did not notice the presence of the rest; did not

speak to anybody, and was tormented by the old agony. He felt it most of

all when the men were sleeping and he alone could not get one moment of

sleep. Continually he saw HER before his eyes, heard her voice, and then

again the black devils with their horrible eyes came and tortured him in

the usual way.

He again tried to say his prayers, but, just as before, it did not help

him. One day when, after his prayers, she was again before his eyes, he

began to implore her dear soul to forgive him his sin, and release him.

Towards morning, when he fell down quite exhausted on his crushed linen

bag, he fell asleep at once, and in his dream she came to him with her

thin, wrinkled, and severed neck. “Will you forgive me?” he asked. She

looked at him with her mild eyes and did not answer. “Will you forgive

me?” And so he asked her three times. But she did not say a word, and he

awoke. From that time onwards he suffered less, and seemed to come to his

senses, looked around him, and began for the first time to talk to the

other men in the cell.

III

STEPAN’S cell was shared among others by the former yard-porter, Vassily,

who had been sentenced to deportation for robbery, and by Chouev,

sentenced also to deportation. Vassily sang songs the whole day long with

his fine voice, or told his adventures to the other men in the cell.

Chouev was working at something all day, mending his clothes, or reading

the Gospel and the Psalter.

Stepan asked him why he was put into prison, and Chouev answered that he

was being persecuted because of his true Christian faith by the priests,

who were all of them hypocrites and hated those who followed the law of

Christ. Stepan asked what that true law was, and Chouev made clear to him

that the true law consists in not worshipping gods made with hands, but

worshipping the spirit and the truth. He told him how he had learnt the

truth from the lame tailor at the time when they were dividing the land.

“And what will become of those who have done evil?” asked Stepan.

“The Scriptures give an answer to that,” said Chouev, and read aloud to

him Matthew xxv. 31:—“When the Son of Man shall come in His glory,

and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His

glory: and before Him shall be gathered all nations: and He shall separate

them one from another, as a shepherd divideth His sheep from the goats:

and He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left.

Then shall the King say unto them on His right hand, Come, ye blessed of

My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the

world: for I was an hungred, and ye gave Me meat: I was thirsty, and ye

gave Me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took Me in: naked, and ye clothed

Me: I was sick, and ye visited Me: I was in prison, and ye came unto Me.

Then shall the righteous answer Him, saying, Lord, when saw we Thee an

hungred, and fed Thee? or thirsty, and gave Thee drink? When saw we Thee a

stranger, and took Thee in? or naked, and clothed Thee? Or when saw we

Thee sick, or in prison, and came unto Thee? And the King shall answer and

say unto them, Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one

of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me. Then shall He

say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from Me, ye cursed, into

everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was an

hungred, and ye gave Me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave Me no drink: I

was a stranger and ye took Me not in: naked, and ye clothed Me not; sick,

and in prison, and ye visited Me not. Then shall they also answer Him,

saying, Lord, when saw we Thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or

naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto Thee? Then shall

He answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not

to one of the least of these, ye did it not to Me. And these shall go away

into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.”

Vassily, who was sitting on the floor at Chouev’s side, and was listening

to his reading the Gospel, nodded his handsome head in approval. “True,”

he said in a resolute tone. “Go, you cursed villains, into everlasting

punishment, since you did not give food to the hungry, but swallowed it

all yourself. Serves them right! I have read the holy Nikodim’s writings,”

he added, showing off his erudition.

“And will they never be pardoned?” asked Stepan, who had listened

silently, with his hairy head bent low down.

“Wait a moment, and be silent,” said Chouev to Vassily, who went on

talking about the rich who had not given meat to the stranger, nor visited

him in the prison.

“Wait, I say!” said Chouev, again turning over the leaves of the Gospel.

Having found what he was looking for, Chouev smoothed the page with his

large and strong hand, which had become exceedingly white in prison:

“And there were also two other malefactors, led with Him”—it means

with Christ—“to be put to death. And when they were come to the

place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified Him, and the

malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left. Then said

Jesus,—‘Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.’ And

the people stood beholding. And the rulers also with them derided Him,

saying,—‘He saved others; let Him save Himself if He be Christ, the

chosen of God.’ And the soldiers also mocked Him, coming to Him, and

offering Him vinegar, and saying, ‘If Thou be the King of the Jews save

Thyself.’ And a superscription also was written over Him in letters of

Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew, ‘This is the King of the Jews.’ And one of

the malefactors which were hanged railed on Him, saying, ‘If thou be

Christ, save Thyself and us.’ But the other answering rebuked Him, saying,

‘Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we

indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man

hath done nothing amiss.’ And he said unto Jesus, ‘Lord, remember me when

Thou comest into Thy kingdom.’ And Jesus said unto him, ‘Verily I say unto

thee, to-day shalt thou be with Me in paradise.’”

Stepan did not say anything, and was sitting in thought, as if he were

listening.

Now he knew what the true faith was. Those only will be saved who have

given food and drink to the poor and visited the prisoners; those who have

not done it, go to hell. And yet the malefactor had repented on the cross,

and went nevertheless to paradise. This did not strike him as being

inconsistent. Quite the contrary. The one confirmed the other: the fact

that the merciful will go to Heaven, and the unmerciful to hell, meant

that everybody ought to be merciful, and the malefactor having been

forgiven by Christ meant that Christ was merciful. This was all new to

Stepan, and he wondered why it had been hidden from him so long.

From that day onward he spent all his free time with Chouev, asking him

questions and listening to him. He saw but a single truth at the bottom of

the teaching of Christ as revealed to him by Chouev: that all men are

brethren, and that they ought to love and pity one another in order that

all might be happy. And when he listened to Chouev, everything that was

consistent with this fundamental truth came to him like a thing he had

known before and only forgotten since, while whatever he heard that seemed

to contradict it, he would take no notice of, as he thought that he simply

had not understood the real meaning. And from that time Stepan was a

different man.

IV

STEPAN had been very submissive and meek ever since he came to the prison,

but now he made the prison authorities and all his fellow-prisoners wonder

at the change in him. Without being ordered, and out of his proper turn he

would do all the very hardest work in prison, and the dirtiest too. But in

spite of his humility, the other prisoners stood in awe of him, and were

afraid of him, as they knew he was a resolute man, possessed of great

physical strength. Their respect for him increased after the incident of

the two tramps who fell upon him; he wrenched himself loose from them and

broke the arm of one of them in the fight. These tramps had gambled with a

young prisoner of some means and deprived him of all his money. Stepan

took his part, and deprived the tramps of their winnings. The tramps

poured their abuse on him; but when they attacked him, he got the better

of them. When the Governor asked how the fight had come about, the tramps

declared that it was Stepan who had begun it. Stepan did not try to

exculpate himself, and bore patiently his sentence which was three days in

the punishment-cell, and after that solitary confinement.

In his solitary cell he suffered because he could no longer listen to

Chouev and his Gospel. He was also afraid that the former visions of HER

and of the black devils would reappear to torment him. But the visions

were gone for good. His soul was full of new and happy ideas. He felt glad

to be alone if only he could read, and if he had the Gospel. He knew that

he might have got hold of the Gospel, but he could not read.

He had started to learn the alphabet in his boyhood, but could not grasp

the joining of the syllables, and remained illiterate. He made up his mind

to start reading anew, and asked the guard to bring him the Gospels. They

were brought to him, and he sat down to work. He contrived to recollect

the letters, but could not join them into syllables. He tried as hard as

he could to understand how the letters ought to be put together to form

words, but with no result whatever. He lost his sleep, had no desire to

eat, and a deep sadness came over him, which he was unable to shake off.

“Well, have you not yet mastered it?” asked the guard one day.

“No.”

“Do you know ‘Our Father’?”

“I do.”

“Since you do, read it in the Gospels. Here it is,” said the guard,

showing him the prayer in the Gospels. Stepan began to read it, comparing

the letters he knew with the familiar sounds.

And all of a sudden the mystery of the syllables was revealed to him, and

he began to read. This was a great joy. From that moment he could read,

and the meaning of the words, spelt out with such great pains, became more

significant.

Stepan did not mind any more being alone. He was so full of his work that

he did not feel glad when he was transferred back to the common cell, his

private cell being needed for a political prisoner who had been just sent

to prison.

V

IN the meantime Mahin, the schoolboy who had taught his friend Smokovnikov

to forge the coupon, had finished his career at school and then at the

university, where he had studied law. He had the advantage of being liked

by women, and as he had won favour with a vice-minister’s former mistress,

he was appointed when still young as examining magistrate. He was

dishonest, had debts, had gambled, and had seduced many women; but he was

clever, sagacious, and a good magistrate. He was appointed to the court of

the district where Stepan Pelageushkine had been tried. When Stepan was

brought to him the first time to give evidence, his sincere and quiet

answers puzzled the magistrate. He somehow unconsciously felt that this

man, brought to him in fetters and with a shorn head, guarded by two

soldiers who were waiting to take him back to prison, had a free soul and

was immeasurably superior to himself. He was in consequence somewhat

troubled, and had to summon up all his courage in order to go on with the

inquiry and not blunder in his questions. He was amazed that Stepan should

narrate the story of his crimes as if they had been things of long ago,

and committed not by him but by some different man.

“Had you no pity for them?” asked Mahin.

“No. I did not know then.”

“Well, and now?”

Stepan smiled with a sad smile. “Now,” he said, “I would not do it even if

I were to be burned alive.”

“But why?

“Because I have come to know that all men are brethren.”

“What about me? Am I your brother also?”

“Of course you are.”

“And how is it that I, your brother, am sending you to hard labour?”

“It is because you don’t know.”

“What do I not know?”

“Since you judge, it means obviously that you don’t know.”

“Go on. . . . What next?”

VI

Now it was not Chouev, but Stepan who used to read the gospel in the

common cell. Some of the prisoners were singing coarse songs, while others

listened to Stepan reading the gospel and talking about what he had read.

The most attentive among those who listened were two of the prisoners,

Vassily, and a convict called Mahorkin, a murderer who had become a

hangman. Twice during his stay in this prison he was called upon to do

duty as hangman, and both times in far-away places where nobody could be

found to execute the sentences.

Two of the peasants who had killed Peter Nikolaevich Sventizky, had been

sentenced to the gallows, and Mahorkin was ordered to go to Pensa to hang

them. On all previous occasions he used to write a petition to the

governor of the province—he knew well how to read and to write—stating

that he had been ordered to fulfil his duty, and asking for money for his

expenses. But now, to the greatest astonishment of the prison authorities,

he said he did not intend to go, and added that he would not be a hangman

any more.

“And what about being flogged?” cried the governor of the prison.

“I will have to bear it, as the law commands us not to kill.”

“Did you get that from Pelageushkine? A nice sort of a prison prophet! You

just wait and see what this will cost you!”

When Mahin was told of that incident, he was greatly impressed by the fact

of Stepan’s influence on the hangman, who refused to do his duty, running

the risk of being hanged himself for insubordination.

VII

AT an evening party at the Eropkins, Mahin, who was paying attentions to

the two young daughters of the house—they were rich matches, both of

them—having earned great applause for his fine singing and playing

the piano, began telling the company about the strange convict who had

converted the hangman. Mahin told his story very accurately, as he had a

very good memory, which was all the more retentive because of his total

indifference to those with whom he had to deal. He never paid the

slightest attention to other people’s feelings, and was therefore better

able to keep all they did or said in his memory. He got interested in

Stepan Pelageushkine, and, although he did not thoroughly understand him,

yet asked himself involuntarily what was the matter with the man? He could

not find an answer, but feeling that there was certainly something

remarkable going on in Stepan’s soul, he told the company at the Eropkins

all about Stepan’s conversion of the hangman, and also about his strange

behaviour in prison, his reading the Gospels and his great influence on

the rest of the prisoners. All this made a special impression on the

younger daughter of the family, Lisa, a girl of eighteen, who was just

recovering from the artificial life she had been living in a

boarding-school; she felt as if she had emerged out of water, and was

taking in the fresh air of true life with ecstasy. She asked Mahin to tell

her more about the man Pelageushkine, and to explain to her how such a

great change had come over him. Mahin told her what he knew from the

police official about Stepan’s last murder, and also what he had heard

from Pelageushkine himself—how he had been conquered by the

humility, mildness, and fearlessness of a kind woman, who had been his

last victim, and how his eyes had been opened, while the reading of the

Gospels had completed the change in him.

Lisa Eropkin was not able to sleep that night. For a couple of months a

struggle had gone on in her heart between society life, into which her

sister was dragging her, and her infatuation for Mahin, combined with a

desire to reform him. This second desire now became the stronger. She had

already heard about poor Maria Semenovna. But, after that kind woman had

been murdered in such a ghastly way, and after Mahin, who learnt it from

Stepan, had communicated to her all the facts concerning Maria Semenovna’s

life, Lisa herself passionately desired to become like her. She was a rich

girl, and was afraid that Mahin had been courting her because of her

money. So she resolved to give all she possessed to the poor, and told

Mahin about it.

Mahin was very glad to prove his disinterestedness, and told Lisa that he

loved her and not her money. Such proof of his innate nobility made him

admire himself greatly. Mahin helped Lisa to carry out her decision. And

the more he did so, the more he came to realise the new world of Lisa’s

spiritual ambitions, quite unknown to him heretofore.

VIII

ALL were silent in the common cell. Stepan was lying in his bed, but was

not yet asleep. Vassily approached him, and, pulling him by his leg, asked

him in a whisper to get up and to come to him. Stepan stepped out of his

bed, and came up to Vassily.

“Do me a kindness, brother,” said Vassily. “Help me!”

“In what?”

“I am going to fly from the prison.”

Vassily told Stepan that he had everything ready for his flight.

“To-morrow I shall stir them up—” He pointed to the prisoners asleep

in their beds. “They will give me away, and I shall be transferred to the

cell in the upper floor. I know my way from there. What I want you for is

to unscrew the prop in the door of the mortuary.” “I can do that. But

where will you go?”

“I don’t care where. Are not there plenty of wicked people in every

place?”

“Quite so, brother. But it is not our business to judge them.”

“I am not a murderer, to be sure. I have not destroyed a living soul in my

life. As for stealing, I don’t see any harm in that. As if they have not

robbed us!”

“Let them answer for it themselves, if they do.”

“Bother them all! Suppose I rob a church, who will be hurt? This time I

will take care not to break into a small shop, but will get hold of a lot

of money, and then I will help people with it. I will give it to all good

people.”

One of the prisoners rose in his bed and listened. Stepan and Vassily

broke off their conversation. The next day Vassily carried out his idea.

He began complaining of the bread in prison, saying it was moist, and

induced the prisoners to call the governor and to tell him of their

discontent. The governor came, abused them all, and when he heard it was

Vassily who had stirred up the men, he ordered him to be transferred into

solitary confinement in the cell on the upper floor. This was all Vassily

wanted.

IX

VASSILY knew well that cell on the upper floor. He knew its floor, and

began at once to take out bits of it. When he had managed to get under the

floor he took out pieces of the ceiling beneath, and jumped down into the

mortuary a floor below. That day only one corpse was lying on the table.

There in the corner of the room were stored bags to make hay mattresses

for the prisoners. Vassily knew about the bags, and that was why the

mortuary served his purposes. The prop in the door had been unscrewed and

put in again. He took it out, opened the door, and went out into the

passage to the lavatory which was being built. In the lavatory was a large

hole connecting the third floor with the basement floor. After having

found the door of the lavatory he went back to the mortuary, stripped the

sheet off the dead body which was as cold as ice (in taking off the sheet

Vassily touched his hand), took the bags, tied them together to make a

rope, and carried the rope to the lavatory. Then he attached it to the

cross-beam, and climbed down along it. The rope did not reach the ground,

but he did not know how much was wanting. Anyhow, he had to take the risk.

He remained hanging in the air, and then jumped down. His legs were badly

hurt, but he could still walk on. The basement had two windows; he could

have climbed out of one of them but for the grating protecting them. He

had to break the grating, but there was no tool to do it with. Vassily

began to look around him, and chanced on a piece of plank with a sharp

edge; armed with that weapon he tried to loosen the bricks which held the

grating. He worked a long time at that task. The cock crowed for the

second time, but the grating still held. At last he had loosened one side;

and then he pushed the plank under the loosened end and pressed with all

his force. The grating gave way completely, but at that moment one of the

bricks fell down heavily. The noise could have been heard by the sentry.

Vassily stood motionless. But silence reigned. He climbed out of the

window. His way of escape was to climb the wall. An outhouse stood in the

corner of the courtyard. He had to reach its roof, and pass thence to the

top of the wall. But he would not be able to reach the roof without the

help of the plank; so he had to go back through the basement window to

fetch it. A moment later he came out of the window with the plank in his

hands; he stood still for a while listening to the steps of the sentry.

His expectations were justified. The sentry was walking up and down on the

other side of the courtyard. Vassily came up to the outhouse, leaned the

plank against it, and began climbing. The plank slipped and fell on the

ground. Vassily had his stockings on; he took them off so that he could

cling with his bare feet in coming down. Then he leaned the plank again

against the house, and seized the water-pipe with his hands. If only this

time the plank would hold! A quick movement up the water-pipe, and his

knee rested on the roof. The sentry was approaching. Vassily lay

motionless. The sentry did not notice him, and passed on. Vassily leaped

to his feet; the iron roof cracked under him. Another step or two, and he

would reach the wall. He could touch it with his hand now. He leaned

forward with one hand, then with the other, stretched out his body as far

as he could, and found himself on the wall. Only, not to break his legs in

jumping down, Vassily turned round, remained hanging in the air by his

hands, stretched himself out, loosened the grip of one hand, then the

other. “Help, me, God!” He was on the ground. And the ground was soft. His

legs were not hurt, and he ran at the top of his speed. In a suburb,

Malania opened her door, and he crept under her warm coverlet, made of

small pieces of different colours stitched together.

X

THE wife of Peter Nikolaevich Sventizky, a tall and handsome woman, as

quiet and sleek as a well-fed heifer, had seen from her window how her

husband had been murdered and dragged away into the fields. The horror of

such a sight to Natalia Ivanovna was so intense—how could it be

otherwise?—that all her other feelings vanished. No sooner had the

crowd disappeared from view behind the garden fence, and the voices had

become still; no sooner had the barefooted Malania, their servant, run in

with her eyes starting out of her head, calling out in a voice more suited

to the proclamation of glad tidings the news that Peter Nikolaevich had

been murdered and thrown into the ravine, than Natalia Ivanovna felt that

behind her first sensation of horror, there was another sensation; a

feeling of joy at her deliverance from the tyrant, who through all the

nineteen years of their married life had made her work without a moment’s

rest. Her joy made her aghast; she did not confess it to herself, but hid

it the more from those around. When his mutilated, yellow and hairy body

was being washed and put into the coffin, she cried with horror, and wept

and sobbed. When the coroner—a special coroner for serious cases—came

and was taking her evidence, she noticed in the room, where the inquest

was taking place, two peasants in irons, who had been charged as the

principal culprits. One of them was an old man with a curly white beard,

and a calm and severe countenance. The other was rather young, of a gipsy

type, with bright eyes and curly dishevelled hair. She declared that they

were the two men who had first seized hold of Peter Nikolaevich’s hands.

In spite of the gipsy-like peasant looking at her with his eyes glistening

from under his moving eyebrows, and saying reproachfully: “A great sin,

lady, it is. Remember your death hour!”—in spite of that, she did

not feel at all sorry for them. On the contrary, she began to hate them

during the inquest, and wished desperately to take revenge on her

husband’s murderers.

A month later, after the case, which was committed for trial by

court-martial, had ended in eight men being sentenced to hard labour, and

in two—the old man with the white beard, and the gipsy boy, as she

called the other—being condemned to be hanged, Natalia felt vaguely

uneasy. But unpleasant doubts soon pass away under the solemnity of a

trial. Since such high authorities considered that this was the right

thing to do, it must be right.