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diff --git a/6722-0.txt b/6722-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..37e8ea6 --- /dev/null +++ b/6722-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4059 @@ + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Seven who were Hanged, by Leonid Andreyev + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Seven who were Hanged + +Author: Leonid Andreyev + +Release Date: June 1, 2009 [EBook #6722] +Last Updated: September 15, 2019 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEVEN WHO WERE HANGED *** + + + + +Produced by Eric Eldred, and David Widger + + + + + + +cover + + + +The Seven who were Hanged + + A STORY + + +by Leonid Andreyev + + + + Authorized Translation From The Russian By Herman Bernstein. + + + + +Contents + + + FOREWORD + INTRODUCTION + THE SEVEN WHO WERE HANGED +CHAPTER I AT ONE O’CLOCK, YOUR EXCELLENCY! +CHAPTER II CONDEMNED TO BE HANGED +CHAPTER III WHY SHOULD I BE HANGED? +CHAPTER IV WE COME FROM ORYOL +CHAPTER V KISS—AND SAY NOTHING +CHAPTER VI THE HOURS ARE RUSHING +CHAPTER VII THERE IS NO DEATH +CHAPTER VIII THERE IS DEATH AS WELL AS LIFE +CHAPTER IX DREADFUL SOLITUDE +CHAPTER X THE WALLS ARE FALLING +CHAPTER XI ON THE WAY TO THE SCAFFOLD +CHAPTER XII THEY ARE HANGED + + + +Andreyev + + +Leonid Andreyev + + +DEDICATION +To Count Leo N. Tolstoy +This Book is Dedicated +by Leonid Andreyev + +The Translation of this Story +Is Also Respectfully Inscribed to +Count Leo N. Tolstoy +by Herman Bernstein + + +FOREWORD + +Leonid Andreyev, who was born in Oryol, in 1871, is the most popular, +and next to Tolstoy, the most gifted writer in Russia to-day. Andreyev +has written many important stories and dramas, the best known among +which are “Red Laughter,” “Life of Man,” “To the Stars,” “The Life of +Vasily Fiveisky,” “Eliazar,” “Black Masks,” and “The Story of the Seven +Who Were Hanged.” + +In “Red Laughter” he depicted the horrors of war as few men had ever +before done it. He dipped his pen into the blood of Russia and wrote +the tragedy of the Manchurian war. + +In his “Life of Man” Andreyev produced a great, imaginative “morality” +play which has been ranked by European critics with some of the +greatest dramatic masterpieces. + +The story of “The Seven Who Were Hanged” is thus far his most important +achievement. The keen psychological insight and the masterly simplicity +with which Andreyev has penetrated and depicted each of the tragedies +of the seven who were hanged place him in the same class as an artist +with Russia’s greatest masters of fiction, Dostoyevsky, Turgenev and +Tolstoy. + +I consider myself fortunate to be able to present to the +English-reading public this remarkable work, which has already produced +a profound impression in Europe and which, I believe, is destined for a +long time to come to play an important part in opening the eyes of the +world to the horrors perpetrated in Russia and to the violence and +iniquity of the destruction of human life, whatever the error or the +crime. + +_New York._ + +HERMAN BERNSTEIN. + + + +INTRODUCTION + + [Translation of the Foregoing Letter in Russian] + +I am very glad that “The Story of the Seven Who Were Hanged” will be +read in English. The misfortune of us all is that we know so little, +even nothing, about one another—neither about the soul, nor the life, +the sufferings, the habits, the inclinations, the aspirations of one +another. Literature, which I have the honor to serve, is dear to me +just because the noblest task it sets before itself is that of wiping +out boundaries and distances. + +As in a hard shell, every human being is enclosed in a cover of body, +dress, and life. Who is man? We may only conjecture. What constitutes +his joy or his sorrow? We may guess only by his acts, which are +oft-times enigmatic; by his laughter and by his tears, which are often +entirely incomprehensible to us. And if we, Russians, who live so +closely together in constant misery, understand one another so poorly +that we mercilessly put to death those who should be pitied or even +rewarded, and reward those who should be punished by contempt and +anger—how much more difficult is it for you Americans, to understand +distant Russia? But then, it is just as difficult for us Russians to +understand distant America, of which we dream in our youth and over +which we ponder so deeply in our years of maturity. + +The Jewish massacres and famine; a Parliament and executions; pillage +and the greatest heroism; “The Black Hundred,” and Leo Tolstoy—what a +mixture of figures and conceptions, what a fruitful source for all +kinds of misunderstandings! The truth of life stands aghast in silence, +and its brazen falsehood is loudly shouting, uttering pressing, painful +questions: “With whom shall I sympathize? Whom shall I trust? Whom +shall I love?” + +In the story of “The Seven Who Were Hanged” I attempted to give a +sincere and unprejudiced answer to some of these questions. + +That I have treated ruling and slaughtering Russia with restraint and +mildness may best be gathered from the fact that the Russian censor has +permitted my book to circulate. This is sufficient evidence when we +recall how many books, brochures and newspapers have found eternal rest +in the peaceful shade of the police stations, where they have risen to +the patient sky in the smoke and flame of bonfires. + +But I did not attempt to condemn the Government, the fame of whose +wisdom and virtues has already spread far beyond the boundaries of our +unfortunate fatherland. Modest and bashful far beyond all measure of +her virtues, Russia would sincerely wish to forego this honor, but +unfortunately the free press of America and Europe has not spared her +modesty, and has given a sufficiently clear picture of her glorious +activities. Perhaps I am wrong in this: it is possible that many honest +people in America believe in the purity of the Russian Government’s +intentions—but this question is of such importance that it requires a +special treatment, for which it is necessary to have both time and calm +of soul. But there is no calm soul in Russia. + +My task was to point out the horror and the iniquity of capital +punishment under any circumstances. The horror of capital punishment is +great when it falls to the lot of courageous and honest people whose +only guilt is their excess of love and the sense of righteousness—in +such instances, conscience revolts. But the rope is still more horrible +when it forms the noose around the necks of weak and ignorant people. +And however strange it may appear, I look with a lesser grief and +suffering upon the execution of the revolutionists, such as Werner and +Musya, than upon the strangling of ignorant murderers, miserable in +mind and heart, like Yanson and Tsiganok. Even the last mad horror of +inevitably approaching execution Werner can offset by his enlightened +mind and his iron will, and Musya, by her purity and her innocence. *** + +But how are the weak and the sinful to face it if not in madness, with +the most violent shock to the very foundation of their souls? And these +people, now that the Government has steadied its hands through its +experience with the revolutionists, are being hanged throughout +Russia—in some places one at a time, in others, ten at once. Children +at play come upon badly buried bodies, and the crowds which gather look +with horror upon the peasants’ boots that are sticking out of the +ground; prosecutors who have witnessed these executions are becoming +insane and are taken away to hospitals—while the people are being +hanged—being hanged. + +I am deeply grateful to you for the task you have undertaken in +translating this sad story. Knowing the sensitiveness of the American +people, who at one time sent across the ocean, steamers full of bread +for famine-stricken Russia, I am convinced that in this case our people +in their misery and bitterness will also find understanding and +sympathy. And if my truthful story about seven of the thousands who +were hanged will help toward destroying at least one of the barriers +which separate one nation from another, one human being from another, +one soul from another soul, I shall consider myself happy. + +Respectfully yours, +LEONID ANDREYEV. + + + + +THE SEVEN WHO WERE HANGED + + + +CHAPTER I AT ONE O’CLOCK, YOUR EXCELLENCY! + +As the Minister was a very stout man, inclined to apoplexy, they feared +to arouse in him any dangerous excitement, and it was with every +possible precaution that they informed him that a very serious attempt +upon his life had been planned. When they saw that he received the news +calmly, even with a smile, they gave him, also, the details. The +attempt was to be made on the following day at the time that he was to +start out with his official report; several men, terrorists, whose +plans had already been betrayed by a _provocateur_, and who were now +under the vigilant surveillance of detectives, were to meet at one +o’clock in the afternoon in front of his house, and, armed with bombs +and revolvers, were to wait till he came out. There the terrorists were +to be trapped. + +“Wait!” muttered the Minister, perplexed. “How did they know that I was +to leave the house at one o’clock in the afternoon with my report, when +I myself learned of it only the day before yesterday?” + +The Chief of the Guards stretched out his arms with a shrug. + +“Exactly at one o’clock in the afternoon, your Excellency,” he said. + +Half surprised, half commending the work of the police, who had managed +everything skilfully, the Minister shook his head, a morose smile upon +his thick, dark lips, and still smiling obediently, and not desiring to +interfere with the plans of the police, he hastily made ready, and went +out to pass the night in some one else’s hospitable palace. His wife +and his two children were also removed from the dangerous house, before +which the bomb-throwers were to gather upon the following day. + +While the lights were burning in the palace, and courteous, familiar +faces were bowing to him, smiling and expressing their concern, the +dignitary experienced a sensation of pleasant excitement—he felt as if +he had already received, or was soon to receive, some great and +unexpected reward. But the people went away, the lights were +extinguished, and through the mirrors, the lace-like and fantastic +reflection of the electric lamps on the street, quivered across the +ceiling and over the walls. A stranger in the house, with its +paintings, its statues and its silence, the light—itself silent and +indefinite—awakened painful thoughts in him as to the vanity of bolts +and guards and walls. And then, in the dead of night, in the silence +and solitude of a strange bedroom, a sensation of unbearable fear swept +over the dignitary. + +He had some kidney trouble, and whenever he grew strongly agitated, his +face, his hands and his feet became swollen. Now, rising like a +mountain of bloated flesh above the taut springs of the bed, he felt, +with the anguish of a sick man, his swollen face, which seemed to him +to belong to some one else. Unceasingly he kept thinking of the cruel +fate which people were preparing for him. He recalled, one after +another, all the recent horrible instances of bombs that had been +thrown at men of even greater eminence than himself; he recalled how +the bombs had torn bodies to pieces, had spattered brains over dirty +brick walls, had knocked teeth from their roots. And influenced by +these meditations, it seemed to him that his own stout, sickly body, +outspread on the bed, was already experiencing the fiery shock of the +explosion. He seemed to be able to feel his arms being severed from the +shoulders, his teeth knocked out, his brains scattered into particles, +his feet growing numb, lying quietly, their toes upward, like those of +a dead man. He stirred with an effort, breathed loudly and coughed in +order not to seem to himself to resemble a corpse in any way. He +encouraged himself with the live noise of the grating springs, of the +rustling blanket; and to assure himself that he was actually alive and +not dead, he uttered in a bass voice, loudly and abruptly, in the +silence and solitude of the bedroom: + +“_Molodtsi! Molodtsi! Molodtsi!_ (Good boys)!” + +He was praising the detectives, the police, and the soldiers—all those +who guarded his life, and who so opportunely and so cleverly had +averted the assassination. But even though he stirred, even though he +praised his protectors, even though he forced an unnatural smile, in +order to express his contempt for the foolish, unsuccessful terrorists, +he nevertheless did not believe in his safety, he was not sure that his +life would not leave him suddenly, at once. Death, which people had +devised for him, and which was only in their minds, in their intention, +seemed to him to be already standing there in the room. It seemed to +him that Death would remain standing there, and would not go away until +those people had been captured, until the bombs had been taken from +them, until they had been placed in a strong prison. There Death was +standing in the corner, and would not go away—it could not go away, +even as an obedient sentinel stationed on guard by a superior’s will +and order. + +“At one o’clock in the afternoon, your Excellency!” this phrase kept +ringing, changing its tone continually: now it was cheerfully mocking, +now angry, now dull and obstinate. It sounded as if a hundred wound-up +gramophones had been placed in his room, and all of them, one after +another, were shouting with idiotic repetition the words they had been +made to shout: + +“At one o’clock in the afternoon, your Excellency!” + +And suddenly, this one o’clock in the afternoon to-morrow, which but a +short while ago was not in any way different from other hours, which +was only a quiet movement of the hand along the dial of his gold watch, +assumed an ominous finality, sprang out of the dial, began to live +separately, stretched itself into an enormously huge black pole which +cut all life in two. It seemed as if no other hours had existed before +it and no other hours would exist after it—as if this hour alone, +insolent and presumptuous, had a right to a certain peculiar existence. + +“Well, what do you want?” asked the Minister angrily, muttering between +his teeth. + +The gramophone shouted: + +“At one o’clock in the afternoon, your Excellency!” and the black pole +smiled and bowed. Gnashing his teeth, the Minister rose in his bed to a +sitting posture, leaning his face on the palms of his hands—he +positively could not sleep on that dreadful night. + +Clasping his face in his swollen, perfumed palms, he pictured to +himself with horrifying clearness how on the following morning, not +knowing anything of the plot against his life, he would have risen, +would have drunk his coffee, not knowing anything, and then would have +put on his coat in the hallway. And neither he, nor the doorkeeper who +would have handed him his fur coat, nor the lackey who would have +brought him the coffee, would have known that it was utterly useless to +drink coffee, and to put on the coat, since a few instants later, +everything—the fur coat and his body and the coffee within it—would be +destroyed by an explosion, would be seized by death. The doorkeeper +would have opened the glass door.... He, the amiable, kind, gentle +doorkeeper, with the blue, typical eyes of a soldier, and with medals +across his breast—he himself with his own hands would have opened the +terrible door, opened it because he knew nothing. Everybody would have +smiled because they did not know anything. + +“Oho!” he suddenly said aloud, and slowly removed his hands from his +face. Peering into the darkness, far ahead of him, with a fixed, +strained look, he outstretched his hand just as slowly, felt the button +on the wall and pressed it. Then he arose, and without putting on his +slippers, walked in his bare feet over the rug in the strange, +unfamiliar bedroom, found the button of another lamp upon the wall and +pressed it. It became light and pleasant, and only the disarranged bed +with the blanket, which had slipped off to the floor, spoke of the +horror, not altogether past. + +In his night-clothes, with his beard disheveled by his restless +movements, with his angry eyes, the dignitary resembled any other angry +old man who suffered with insomnia and shortness of breath. It was as +if the death which people were preparing for him, had made him bare, +had torn away from him the magnificence and splendor which had +surrounded him—and it was hard to believe that it was he who had so +much power, that his body was but an ordinary plain human body that +must have perished terribly in the flame and roar of a monstrous +explosion. Without dressing himself and not feeling the cold, he sat +down in the first armchair he found, stroking his disheveled beard, and +fixed his eyes in deep, calm thoughtfulness upon the unfamiliar plaster +figures of the ceiling. + +So that was the trouble! That was why he had trembled in fear and had +become so agitated! That was why Death seemed to stand in the corner +and would not go away, could not go away! + +“Fools!” he said emphatically, with contempt. + +“Fools!” he repeated more loudly, and turned his head slightly toward +the door that those to whom he was referring might hear it. He was +referring to those whom he had praised but a moment before, who in the +excess of their zeal had told him of the plot against his life. + +“Of course,” he thought deeply, an easy, convincing idea arising in his +mind. “Now that they have told me, I know, and feel terrified, but if I +had not been told, I would not have known anything and would have drunk +my coffee calmly. After that Death would have come—but then, am I so +afraid of Death? Here have I been suffering with kidney trouble, and I +must surely die from it some day, and yet I am not afraid—because I do +not know anything. And those fools told me: ‘At one o’clock in the +afternoon, your Excellency!’ and they thought I would be glad. But +instead of that Death stationed itself in the corner and would not go +away. It would not go away because it was my thought. It is not death +that is terrible, but the knowledge of it: it would be utterly +impossible to live if a man could know exactly and definitely the day +and hour of his death. And the fools cautioned me: ‘At one o’clock in +the afternoon, your Excellency!’” + +He began to feel light-hearted and cheerful, as if some one had told +him that he was immortal, that he would never die. And, feeling himself +again strong and wise amidst the herd of fools who had so stupidly and +impudently broken into the mystery of the future, he began to think of +the bliss of ignorance, and his thoughts were the painful thoughts of +an old, sick man who had gone through endless experience. It was not +given to any living being—man or beast—to know the day and hour of +death. Here had he been ill not long ago and the physicians told him +that he must expect the end, that he should make his final +arrangements—but he had not believed them and he remained alive. In his +youth he had become entangled in an affair and had resolved to end his +life; he had even loaded the revolver, had written his letters, and had +fixed upon the hour for suicide—but before the very end he had suddenly +changed his mind. It would always be thus—at the very last moment +something would change, an unexpected accident would befall—no one +could tell when he would die. + +“At one o’clock in the afternoon, your Excellency!” those kind asses +had said to him, and although they had told him of it only that death +might be averted, the mere knowledge of its possibility at a certain +hour again filled him with horror. It was probable that some day he +should be assassinated, but it would not happen to-morrow—it would not +happen to-morrow—and he could sleep undisturbed, as if he were really +immortal. Fools—they did not know what a great law they had dislodged, +what an abyss they had opened, when they said in their idiotic +kindness: “At one o’clock in the afternoon, your Excellency!” + +“No, not at one o’clock in the afternoon, your Excellency, but no one +knows when. No one knows when! What?” + +“Nothing,” answered Silence, “nothing.” + +“But you did say something.” + +“Nothing, nonsense. I say: to-morrow, at one o’clock in the afternoon!” + +There was a sudden, acute pain in his heart—and he understood that he +would have neither sleep, nor peace, nor joy until that accursed black +hour standing out of the dial should have passed. Only the shadow of +the knowledge of something which no living being could know stood there +in the corner, and that was enough to darken the world and envelop him +with the impenetrable gloom of horror. The once disturbed fear of death +diffused through his body, penetrated into his bones. + +He no longer feared the murderers of the next day—they had vanished, +they had been forgotten, they had mingled with the crowd of hostile +faces and incidents which surrounded his life. He now feared something +sudden and inevitable—an apoplectic stroke, heart failure, some foolish +thin little vessel which might suddenly fail to withstand the pressure +of the blood and might burst like a tight glove upon swollen fingers. + +His short, thick neck seemed terrible to him. It became unbearable for +him to look upon his short, swollen fingers—to feel how short they were +and how they were filled with the moisture of death. And if before, +when it was dark, he had had to stir in order not to resemble a corpse, +now in the bright, cold, inimical, dreadful light he was so filled with +horror that he could not move in order to get a cigarette or to ring +for some one. His nerves were giving way. Each one of them seemed as if +it were a bent wire, at the top of which there was a small head with +mad, wide-open frightened eyes and a convulsively gaping, speechless +mouth. He could not draw his breath. + +Suddenly in the darkness, amidst the dust and cobwebs somewhere upon +the ceiling, an electric bell came to life. The small, metallic tongue, +agitatedly, in terror, kept striking the edge of the ringing cap, +became silent—and again quivered in an unceasing, frightened din. His +Excellency was ringing his bell in his own room. + +People began to run. Here and there, in the shadows upon the walls, +lamps flared up—there were not enough of them to give light, but there +were enough to cast shadows. The shadows appeared everywhere; they rose +in the corners, they stretched across the ceiling; tremulously clinging +to each and every elevation, they covered the walls. And it was hard to +understand where all these innumerable, deformed silent +shadows—voiceless souls of voiceless objects—had been before. + +A deep, trembling voice said something loudly. Then the doctor was +hastily summoned by telephone; the dignitary was collapsing. The wife +of his Excellency was also called. + + + +CHAPTER II CONDEMNED TO BE HANGED + +Everything befell as the police had foretold. Four terrorists, three +men and a woman, armed with bombs, infernal machines and revolvers, +were seized at the very entrance of the house, and another woman was +later found and arrested in the house where the conspiracy had been +hatched. She was its mistress. At the same time a great deal of +dynamite and half finished bomb explosives were seized. All those +arrested were very young; the eldest of the men was twenty-eight years +old, the younger of the women was only nineteen. They were tried in the +same fortress in which they were imprisoned after the arrest; they were +tried swiftly and secretly, as was done during that unmerciful time. + +At the trial all of them were calm, but very serious and thoughtful. +Their contempt for the judges was so intense that none of them wished +to emphasize his daring by even a superfluous smile or by a feigned +expression of cheerfulness. Each was simply as calm as was necessary to +hedge in his soul, from curious, evil and inimical eyes, the great +gloom that precedes death. + +Sometimes they refused to answer questions; sometimes they answered, +briefly, simply and precisely, as though they were answering not the +judge, but statisticians, for the purpose of supplying information for +particular special tables. Three of them, one woman and two men, gave +their real names, while two others refused and thus remained unknown to +the judges. + +They manifested for all that was going on at the trial a certain +curiosity, softened, as though through a haze, such as is peculiar to +persons who are very ill or are carried away by some great, +all-absorbing idea. They glanced up occasionally, caught some word in +the air more interesting than the others, and then resumed the thought +from which their attention had been distracted. + +The man who was nearest to the judges called himself Sergey Golovin, +the son of a retired colonel, himself an ex-officer. He was still a +very young, light-haired, broad-shouldered man, so strong that neither +the prison nor the expectation of inevitable death could remove the +color from his cheeks and the expression of youthful, happy frankness +from his blue eyes. He kept energetically tugging at his bushy, small +beard, to which he had not become accustomed, and continually blinking, +kept looking out of the window. + +It was toward the end of winter, when amidst the snowstorms and the +gloomy, frosty days, the approaching spring sent as a forerunner a +clear, warm, sunny day, or but an hour, yet so full of spring, so +eagerly young and beaming that sparrows on the streets lost their wits +for joy, and people seemed almost as intoxicated. And now the strange +and beautiful sky could be seen through an upper window which was +dust-covered and unwashed since the last summer. At first sight the sky +seemed to be milky-gray—smoke-colored—but when you looked longer the +dark blue color began to penetrate through the shade, grew into an ever +deeper blue—ever brighter, ever more intense. And the fact that it did +not reveal itself all at once, but hid itself chastely in the smoke of +transparent clouds, made it as charming as the girl you love. And +Sergey Golovin looked at the sky, tugged at his beard, blinked now one +eye, now the other, with its long, curved lashes, earnestly pondering +over something. Once he began to move his fingers rapidly and +thoughtlessly, knitted his brow in some joy, but then he glanced about +and his joy died out like a spark which is stepped upon. Almost +instantly an earthen, deathly blue, without first changing into pallor, +showed through the color of his cheeks. He clutched his downy hair, +tore their roots painfully with his fingers, whose tips had turned +white. But the joy of life and spring was stronger, and a few minutes +later his frank young face was again yearning toward the spring sky. + +The young, pale girl, known only by the name of Musya, was also looking +in the same direction, at the sky. She was younger than Golovin, but +she seemed older in her gravity and in the darkness of her open, proud +eyes. Only her very thin, slender neck, and her delicate girlish hands +spoke of her youth; but in addition there was that ineffable something, +which is youth itself, and which sounded so distinctly in her clear, +melodious voice, tuned irreproachably like a precious instrument, every +simple word, every exclamation giving evidence of its musical timbre. +She was very pale, but it was not a deathly pallor, but that peculiar +warm whiteness of a person within whom, as it were, a great, strong +fire is burning, whose body glows transparently like fine Sèvres +porcelain. She sat almost motionless, and only at times she touched +with an imperceptible movement of her fingers the circular mark on the +middle finger of her right hand, the mark of a ring which had been +recently removed. + +She gazed at the sky without caressing kindness or joyous +recollections—she looked at it simply because in all the filthy, +official hall the blue bit of sky was the most beautiful, the purest, +the most truthful object, and the only one that did not try to search +hidden depths in her eyes. + +The judges pitied Sergey Golovin; her they despised. + +Her neighbor, known only by the name of Werner, sat also motionless, in +a somewhat affected pose, his hands folded between his knees. If a face +may be said to look like a false door, this unknown man closed his face +like an iron door and bolted it with an iron lock. He stared +motionlessly at the dirty wooden floor, and it was impossible to tell +whether he was calm or whether he was intensely agitated, whether he +was thinking of something, or whether he was listening to the testimony +of the detectives as presented to the court. He was not tall in +stature. His features were refined and delicate. Tender and handsome, +so that he reminded you of a moonlit night in the South near the +seashore, where the cypress trees throw their dark shadows, he at the +same time gave the impression of tremendous, calm power, of invincible +firmness, of cold and audacious courage. The very politeness with which +he gave brief and precise answers seemed dangerous, on his lips, in his +half bow. And if the prison garb looked upon the others like the +ridiculous costume of a buffoon, upon him it was not noticeable, so +foreign was it to his personality. And although the other terrorists +had been seized with bombs and infernal machines upon them, and Werner +had had but a black revolver, the judges for some reason regarded him +as the leader of the others and treated him with a certain deference, +although succinctly and in a business-like manner. + +The next man, Vasily Kashirin, was torn between a terrible, dominating +fear of death and a desperate desire to restrain the fear and not +betray it to the judges. From early morning, from the time they had +been led into court, he had been suffocating from an intolerable +palpitation of his heart. Perspiration came out in drops all along his +forehead; his hands were also perspiring and cold, and his cold, +sweat-covered shirt clung to his body, interfering with the freedom of +his movements. With a supernatural effort of will-power he forced his +fingers not to tremble, his voice to be firm and distinct, his eyes to +be calm. He saw nothing about him; the voices came to him as through a +mist, and it was to this mist that he made his desperate efforts to +answer firmly, to answer loudly. But having answered, he immediately +forgot question as well as answer, and was again struggling with +himself silently and terribly. Death was disclosed in him so clearly +that the judges avoided looking at him. It was hard to define his age, +as is the case with a corpse which has begun to decompose. According to +his passport, he was only twenty-three years old. Once or twice Werner +quietly touched his knee with his hand, and each time Kashirin spoke +shortly: + +“Never mind!” + +The most terrible sensation was when he was suddenly seized with an +insufferable desire to cry out, without words, the desperate cry of a +beast. He touched Werner quickly, and Werner, without lifting his eyes, +said softly: + +“Never mind, Vasya. It will soon be over.” + +And embracing them all with a motherly, anxious look, the fifth +terrorist, Tanya Kovalchuk, was faint with alarm. She had never had any +children; she was still young and red-cheeked, just as Sergey Golovin, +but she seemed as a mother to all of them: so full of anxiety, of +boundless love were her looks, her smiles, her sighs. She paid not the +slightest attention to the trial, regarding it as though it were +something entirely irrelevant, and she listened only to the manner in +which the others were answering the questions, to hear whether the +voice was trembling, whether there was fear, whether it was necessary +to give water to any one. + +She could not look at Vasya in her anguish and only wrung her fingers +silently. At Musya and Werner she gazed proudly and respectfully, and +she assumed a serious and concentrated expression, and then tried to +transfer her smile to Sergey Golovin. + +“The dear boy is looking at the sky. Look, look, my darling!” she +thought about Golovin. + +“And Vasya! What is it? My God, my God! What am I to do with him? If I +should speak to him I might make it still worse. He might suddenly +start to cry.” + +So like a calm pond at dawn, reflecting every hastening, passing cloud, +she reflected upon her full, gentle, kind face every swift sensation, +every thought of the other four. She did not give a single thought to +the fact that she, too, was upon trial, that she, too, would be hanged; +she was entirely indifferent to it. It was in her house that the bombs +and the dynamite had been discovered, and, strange though it may seem, +it was she who had met the police with pistol-shots and had wounded one +of the detectives in the head. + +The trial ended at about eight o’clock, when it had become dark. Before +Musya’s and Golovin’s eyes the sky, which had been turning ever bluer, +was gradually losing its tint, but it did not turn rosy, did not smile +softly as in summer evenings, but became muddy, gray, and suddenly grew +cold, wintry. Golovin heaved a sigh, stretched himself, glanced again +twice at the window, but the cold darkness of the night alone was +there; then continuing to tug at his short beard, he began to examine +with childish curiosity the judges, the soldiers with their muskets, +and he smiled at Tanya Kovalchuk. When the sky had darkened Musya +calmly, without lowering her eyes to the ground, turned them to the +corner where a small cobweb was quivering from the imperceptible +radiations of the steam heat, and thus she remained until the sentence +was pronounced. + +After the verdict, having bidden good-by to their frock-coated lawyers, +and evading each other’s helplessly confused, pitying and guilty eyes, +the convicted terrorists crowded in the doorway for a moment and +exchanged brief words. + +“Never mind, Vasya. Everything will be over soon,” said Werner. + +“I am all right, brother,” Kashirin replied loudly, calmly and even +somewhat cheerfully. And indeed, his face had turned slightly rosy, and +no longer looked like that of a decomposing corpse. + +“The devil take them; they’ve hanged us,” Golovin cursed quaintly. + +“That was to be expected,” replied Werner calmly. + +“To-morrow the sentence will be pronounced in its final form and we +shall all be placed together,” said Tanya Kovalchuk consolingly. “Until +the execution we shall all be together.” + +Musya was silent. Then she resolutely moved forward. + + + +CHAPTER III WHY SHOULD I BE HANGED? + +Two weeks before the terrorists had been tried the same military +district court, with a different set of judges, had tried and condemned +to death by hanging Ivan Yanson, a peasant. + +Ivan Yanson was a workman for a well-to-do farmer, in no way different +from other workmen. He was an Esthonian by birth, from Vezenberg, and +in the course of several years, passing from one farm to another, he +had come close to the capital. He spoke Russian very poorly, and as his +master was a Russian, by name Lazarev, and as there were no Esthonians +in the neighborhood, Yanson had practically remained silent for almost +two years. In general, he was apparently not inclined to talk, and was +silent not only with human beings, but even with animals. He would +water the horse in silence, harness it in silence, moving about it, +slowly and lazily, with short, irresolute steps, and when the horse, +annoyed by his manner, would begin to frolic, to become capricious, he +would beat it in silence with a heavy whip. He would beat it cruelly, +with stolid, angry persistency, and when this happened at a time when +he was suffering from the aftereffects of a carouse, he would work +himself into a frenzy. At such times the crack of the whip could be +heard in the house, with the frightened, painful pounding of the +horse’s hoofs upon the board floor of the barn. For beating the horse +his master would beat Yanson, but then, finding that he could not be +reformed, paid no more attention to him. + +Once or twice a month Yanson became intoxicated, usually on those days +when he took his master to the large railroad station, where there was +a refreshment bar. After leaving his master at the station, he would +drive off about half a verst away, and there, stalling the sled and the +horse in the snow on the side of the road, he would wait until the +train had gone. The sled would stand sideways, almost overturned, the +horse standing with widely spread legs up to his belly in a snow-bank, +from time to time lowering his head to lick the soft, downy snow, while +Yanson would recline in an awkward position in the sled as if dozing +away. The unfastened ear-lappets of his worn fur cap would hang down +like the ears of a setter, and the moist sweat would stand under his +little reddish nose. + +Soon he would return to the station, and would quickly become +intoxicated. + +On his way back to the farm, the whole ten versts, he would drive at a +fast gallop. The little horse, driven to madness by the whip, would +rear, as if possessed by a demon; the sled would sway, almost overturn, +striking against poles, and Yanson, letting the reins go, would half +sing, half exclaim abrupt, meaningless phrases in Esthonian. But more +often he would not sing, but with his teeth gritted together in an +onrush of unspeakable rage, suffering and delight, he would drive +silently on as though blind. He would not notice those who passed him, +he would not call to them to look out, he would not slacken his mad +pace, either at the turns of the road or on the long slopes of the +mountain roads. How it happened at such times that he crushed no one, +how he himself was never dashed to death in one of these mad rides, was +inexplicable. + +He would have been driven from this place, as he had been driven from +other places, but he was cheap and other workmen were not better, and +thus he remained there two years. His life was uneventful. One day he +received a letter, written in Esthonian, but as he himself was +illiterate, and as the others did not understand Esthonian, the letter +remained unread; and as if not understanding that the letter might +bring him tidings from his native home, he flung it into the manure +with a certain savage, grim indifference. At one time Yanson tried to +make love to the cook, but he was not successful, and was rudely +rejected and ridiculed. He was short in stature, his face was freckled, +and his small, sleepy eyes were somewhat of an indefinite color. Yanson +took his failure indifferently, and never again bothered the cook. + +But while Yanson spoke but little, he was listening to something all +the time. He heard the sounds of the dismal, snow-covered fields, with +their heaps of frozen manure resembling rows of small, snow-covered +graves, the sounds of the blue, tender distance, of the buzzing +telegraph wires, and the conversation of other people. What the fields +and telegraph wires spoke to him he alone knew, and the conversation of +the people were disquieting, full of rumors about murders and robberies +and arson. And one night he heard in the neighboring village the little +church bell ringing faintly and helplessly, and the crackling of the +flames of a fire. Some vagabonds had plundered a rich farm, had killed +the master and his wife, and had set fire to the house. + +And on their farm, too, they lived in fear; the dogs were loose, not +only at night, but also during the day, and the master slept with a gun +by his side. He wished to give such a gun to Yanson, only it was an old +one with one barrel. But Yanson turned the gun about in his hand, shook +his head and declined it. His master did not understand the reason and +scolded him, but the reason was that Yanson had more faith in the power +of his Finnish knife than in the rusty gun. + +“It would kill me,” he said, looking at his master sleepily with his +glassy eyes, and the master waved his hand in despair. + +“You fool! Think of having to live with such workmen!” + +And this same Ivan Yanson, who distrusted a gun, one winter evening, +when the other workmen had been sent away to the station, committed a +very complicated attempt at robbery, murder and rape. He did it in a +surprisingly simple manner. He locked the cook in the kitchen, lazily, +with the air of a man who is longing to sleep, walked over to his +master from behind and swiftly stabbed him several times in the back +with his knife. The master fell unconscious, and the mistress began to +run about, screaming, while Yanson, showing his teeth and brandishing +his knife, began to ransack the trunks and the chests of drawers. He +found the money he sought, and then, as if noticing the mistress for +the first time, and as though unexpectedly even to himself, he rushed +upon her in order to violate her. But as he had let his knife drop to +the floor, the mistress proved stronger than he, and not only did not +allow him to harm her, but almost choked him into unconsciousness. Then +the master on the floor turned, the cook thundered upon the door with +the oven-fork, breaking it open, and Yanson ran away into the fields. +He was caught an hour later, kneeling down behind the corner of the +barn, striking one match after another, which would not ignite, in an +attempt to set the place on fire. + +A few days later the master died of blood poisoning, and Yanson, when +his turn among other robbers and murderers came, was tried and +condemned to death. In court he was the same as always; a little man, +freckled, with sleepy, glassy eyes. It seemed as if he did not +understand in the least the meaning of what was going on about him; he +appeared to be entirely indifferent. He blinked his white eyelashes, +stupidly, without curiosity; examined the sombre, unfamiliar courtroom, +and picked his nose with his hard, shriveled, unbending finger. Only +those who had seen him on Sundays at church would have known that he +had made an attempt to adorn himself. He wore on his neck a knitted, +muddy-red shawl, and in places had dampened the hair of his head. Where +the hair was wet it lay dark and smooth, while on the other side it +stuck up in light and sparse tufts, like straws upon a hail-beaten, +wasted meadow. + +When the sentence was pronounced—death by hanging—Yanson suddenly +became agitated. He reddened deeply and began to tie and untie the +shawl about his neck as though it were choking him. Then he waved his +arms stupidly and said, turning to the judge who had not read the +sentence, and pointing with his finger at the judge who read it: + +“He said that I should be hanged.” + +“Who do you mean?” asked the presiding judge, who had pronounced the +sentence in a deep, bass voice. Every one smiled; some tried to hide +their smiles behind their mustaches and their papers. Yanson pointed +his index finger at the presiding judge and answered angrily, looking +at him askance: + +“You!” + +“Well?” + +Yanson again turned his eyes to the judge who had been silent, +restraining a smile, whom he felt to be a friend, a man who had nothing +to do with the sentence, and repeated: + +“He said I should be hanged. Why must I be hanged?” + +“Take the prisoner away.” + +But Yanson succeeded in repeating once more, convincingly and +weightily: + +“Why must I be hanged?” + +He looked so absurd, with his small, angry face, with his outstretched +finger, that even the soldier of the convoy, breaking the rule, said to +him in an undertone as he led him away from the courtroom: + +“You are a fool, young man!” + +“Why must I be hanged?” repeated Yanson stubbornly. + +“They’ll swing you up so quickly that you’ll have no time to kick.” + +“Keep still!” cried the other convoy angrily. But he himself could not +refrain from adding: + +“A robber, too! Why did you take a human life, you fool? You must hang +for that!” + +“They might pardon him,” said the first soldier, who began to feel +sorry for Yanson. + +“Oh, yes! They’ll pardon people like him, will they? Well, we’ve talked +enough.” + +But Yanson had become silent again. + +He was again placed in the cell in which he had already sat for a month +and to which he had grown accustomed, just as he had become accustomed +to everything: to blows, to vodka, to the dismal, snow-covered fields, +with their snow-heaps resembling graves. And now he even began to feel +cheerful when he saw his bed, the familiar window with the grating, and +when he was given something to eat—he had not eaten anything since +morning. He had an unpleasant recollection of what had taken place in +the court, but of that he could not think—he was unable to recall it. +And death by hanging he could not picture to himself at all. + +Although Yanson had been condemned to death, there were many others +similarly sentenced, and he was not regarded as an important criminal. +They spoke to him accordingly, with neither fear nor respect, just as +they would speak to prisoners who were not to be executed. The warden, +on learning of the verdict, said to him: + +“Well, my friend, they’ve hanged you!” + +“When are they going to hang me?” asked Yanson distrustfully. The +warden meditated a moment. + +“Well, you’ll have to wait—until they can get together a whole party. +It isn’t worth bothering for one man, especially for a man like you. It +is necessary to work up the right spirit.” + +“And when will that be?” persisted Yanson. He was not at all offended +that it was not worth while to hang him alone. He did not believe it, +but considered it as an excuse for postponing the execution, +preparatory to revoking it altogether. And he was seized with joy; the +confused, terrible moment, of which it was so painful to think, +retreated far into the distance, becoming fictitious and improbable, as +death always seems. + +“When? When?” cried the warden, a dull, morose old man, growing angry. +“It isn’t like hanging a dog, which you take behind the barn—and it is +done in no time. I suppose you would like to be hanged like that, you +fool!” + +“I don’t want to be hanged,” and suddenly Yanson frowned strangely. “He +said that I should be hanged, but I don’t want it.” + +And perhaps for the first time in his life he laughed, a hoarse, +absurd, yet gay and joyous laughter. It sounded like the cackling of a +goose, Ga-ga-ga! The warden looked at him in astonishment, then knit +his brow sternly. This strange gayety of a man who was to be executed +was an offence to the prison, as well as to the very executioner; it +made them appear absurd. And suddenly, for the briefest instant, it +appeared to the old warden, who had passed all his life in the prison, +and who looked upon its laws as the laws of nature, that the prison and +all the life within it was something like an insane asylum, in which +he, the warden, was the chief lunatic. + +“Pshaw! The devil take you!” and he spat aside. “Why are you giggling +here? This is no dramshop!” + +“And I don’t want to be hanged—ga-ga-ga!” laughed Yanson. + +“Satan!” muttered the inspector, feeling the need of making the sign of +the cross. + +This little man, with his small, wizened face—he resembled least of all +the devil—but there was that in his silly giggling which destroyed the +sanctity and the strength of the prison. If he laughed longer, it +seemed to the warden as if the walls might fall asunder, the grating +melt and drop out, as if the warden himself might lead the prisoners to +the gates, bowing and saying: “Take a walk in the city, gentlemen; or +perhaps some of you would like to go to the village?” + +“Satan!” + +But Yanson had stopped laughing, and was now winking cunningly. + +“You had better look out!” said the warden, with an indefinite threat, +and he walked away, glancing back of him. + +Yanson was calm and cheerful throughout the evening. He repeated to +himself, “I shall not be hanged,” and it seemed to him so convincing, +so wise, so irrefutable, that it was unnecessary to feel uneasy. He had +long forgotten about his crime, only sometimes he regretted that he had +not been successful in attacking his master’s wife. But he soon forgot +that, too. + +Every morning Yanson asked when he was to be hanged, and every morning +the warden answered him angrily: + +“Take your time, you devil! Wait!” and he would walk off quickly before +Yanson could begin to laugh. + +And from these monotonously repeated words, and from the fact that each +day came, passed and ended as every ordinary day had passed, Yanson +became convinced that there would be no execution. He began to lose all +memory of the trial, and would roll about all day long on his cot, +vaguely and happily dreaming about the white melancholy fields, with +their snow-mounds, about the refreshment bar at the railroad station, +and about other things still more vague and bright. He was well fed in +the prison, and somehow he began to grow stout rapidly and to assume +airs. + +“Now she would have liked me,” he thought of his master’s wife. “Now I +am stout—not worse-looking than the master.” + +But he longed for a drink of vodka, to drink and to take a ride on +horseback, to ride fast, madly. + +When the terrorists were arrested the news of it reached the prison. +And in answer to Yanson’s usual question, the warden said eagerly and +unexpectedly: + +“It won’t be long now!” + +He looked at Yanson calmly with an air of importance and repeated: + +“It won’t be long now. I suppose in about a week.” + +Yanson turned pale, and as though falling asleep, so turbid was the +look in his glassy eyes, asked: + +“Are you joking?” + +“First you could not wait, and now you think I am joking. We are not +allowed to joke here. You like to joke, but we are not allowed to,” +said the warden with dignity as he went away. + +Toward evening of that day Yanson had already grown thinner. His skin, +which had stretched out and had become smooth for a time, was suddenly +covered with a multitude of small wrinkles, and in places it seemed +even to hang down. His eyes became sleepy, and all his motions were now +so slow and languid as though each turn of the head, each move of the +fingers, each step of the foot were a complicated and cumbersome +undertaking which required very careful deliberation. At night he lay +on his cot, but did not close his eyes, and thus, heavy with sleep, +they remained open until morning. + +“Aha!” said the warden with satisfaction, seeing him on the following +day. “This is no dramshop for you, my dear!” + +With a feeling of pleasant gratification, like a scientist whose +experiment had proved successful again, he examined the condemned man +closely and carefully from head to foot. Now everything would go along +as necessary. Satan was disgraced, the sacredness of the prison and the +execution was re-established, and the old man inquired condescendingly, +even with a feeling of sincere pity: + +“Do you want to meet somebody or not?” + +“What for?” + +“Well, to say good-by! Have you no mother, for instance, or a brother?” + +“I must not be hanged,” said Yanson softly, and looked askance at the +warden. “I don’t want to be hanged.” + +The warden looked at him and waved his hand in silence. + +Toward evening Yanson grew somewhat calmer. + +The day had been so ordinary, the cloudy winter sky looked so ordinary, +the footsteps of people and their conversation on matters of business +sounded so ordinary, the smell of the sour soup of cabbage was so +ordinary, customary and natural that he again ceased believing in the +execution. But the night became terrible to him. Before this Yanson had +felt the night simply as darkness, as an especially dark time, when it +was necessary to go to sleep, but now he began to be aware of its +mysterious and uncanny nature. In order not to believe in death, it was +necessary to hear and see and feel ordinary things about him, +footsteps, voices, light, the soup of sour cabbage. But in the dark +everything was unnatural; the silence and the darkness were in +themselves something like death. + +And the longer the night dragged the more dreadful it became. With the +ignorant innocence of a child or a savage, who believe everything +possible, Yanson felt like crying to the sun: “Shine!” He begged, he +implored that the sun should shine, but the night drew its long, dark +hours remorselessly over the earth, and there was no power that could +hasten its course. And this impossibility, arising for the first time +before the weak consciousness of Yanson, filled him with terror. Still +not daring to realize it clearly, he already felt the inevitability of +approaching death, and felt himself making the first step upon the +gallows, with benumbed feet. + +Day quieted him, but night again filled him with fear, and so it was +until one night when he realized fully that death was inevitable, that +it would come in three days at dawn with the sunrise. + +He had never thought of what death was, and it had no image to him—but +now he realized clearly, he saw, he felt that it had entered his cell +and was looking for him, groping about with its hands. And to save +himself, he began to run wildly about the room. + +But the cell was so small that it seemed that its corners were not +sharp but dull, and that all of them were pushing him into the center +of the room. And there was nothing behind which to hide. And the door +was locked. And it was dark. Several times he struck his body against +the walls, making no sound, and once he struck against the door—it gave +forth a dull, empty sound. He stumbled over something and fell upon his +face, and then he felt that IT was going to seize him. Lying on his +stomach, holding to the floor, hiding his face in the dark, dirty +asphalt, Yanson howled in terror. He lay; and cried at the top of his +voice until some one came. And when he was lifted from the floor and +seated upon the cot, and cold water was poured over his head, he still +did not dare open his tightly closed eyes. He opened one eye, and +noticing some one’s boot in one of the corners of the room, he +commenced crying again. + +But the cold water began to produce its effect in bringing him to his +senses. To help the effect, the warden on duty, the same old man, +administered medicine to Yanson in the form of several blows upon the +head. And this sensation of life returning to him really drove the fear +of death away. Yanson opened his eyes, and then, his mind utterly +confused, he slept soundly for the remainder of the night. He lay on +his back, with mouth open, and snored loudly, and between his lashes, +which were not tightly closed, his flat, dead eyes, which were upturned +so that the pupil did not show, could be seen. + +Later, everything in the world—day and night, footsteps, voices, the +soup of sour cabbage, produced in him a continuous terror, plunging him +into a state of savage uncomprehending astonishment. His weak mind was +unable to combine these two things which so monstrously contradicted +each other—the bright day, the odor and taste of cabbage—and the fact +that two days later he must die. He did not think of anything. He did +not even count the hours, but simply stood in mute stupefaction before +this contradiction which tore his brain in two. And he became evenly +pale, neither white nor redder in parts, and appeared to be calm. Only +he ate nothing and ceased sleeping altogether. He sat all night long on +a stool, his legs crossed under him, in fright. Or he walked about in +his cell, quietly, stealthily, and sleepily looking about him on all +sides. His mouth was half-open all the time, as though from incessant +astonishment, and before taking the most ordinary thing into his hands, +he would examine it stupidly for a long time, and would take it +distrustfully. + +When he became thus, the wardens as well as the sentinel who watched +him through the little window, ceased paying further attention to him. +This was the customary condition of prisoners, and reminded the wardens +of cattle being led to slaughter after a staggering blow. + +“Now he is stunned, now he will feel nothing until his very death,” +said the warden, looking at him with experienced eyes. “Ivan! Do you +hear? Ivan!” + +“I must not be hanged,” answered Yanson, in a dull voice, and his lower +jaw again drooped. + +“You should not have committed murder. You would not be hanged then,” +answered the chief warden, a young but very important-looking man with +medals on his chest. “You committed murder, yet you do not want to be +hanged?” + +“He wants to kill human beings without paying for it. Fool! fool!” said +another. + +“I don’t want to be hanged,” said Yanson. + +“Well, my friend, you may want it or not, that’s your affair,” replied +the chief warden indifferently. “Instead of talking nonsense, you had +better arrange your affairs. You still have something.” + +“He has nothing. One shirt and a suit of clothes. And a fur cap! A +sport!” + +Thus time passed until Thursday. And on Thursday, at midnight a number +of people entered Yanson’s cell, and one man, with shoulder-straps, +said: + +“Well, get ready. We must go.” + +Yanson, moving slowly and drowsily as before, put on everything he had +and tied his muddy-red muffler about his neck. The man with +shoulder-straps, smoking a cigarette, said to some one while watching +Yanson dress: + +“What a warm day this will be. Real spring.” + +Yanson’s small eyes were closing; he seemed to be falling asleep, and +he moved so slowly and stiffly that the warden cried to him: + +“Hey, there! Quicker! Have you fallen asleep?” + +Suddenly Yanson stopped. + +“I don’t want to be hanged,” said he. + +He was taken by the arms and led away, and began to stride obediently, +raising his shoulders. Outside he found himself in the moist, spring +air, and beads of sweat stood under his little nose. Notwithstanding +that it was night, it was thawing very strongly and drops of water were +dripping upon the stones. And waiting while the soldiers, clanking +their sabres and bending their heads, were stepping into the unlighted +black carriage, Yanson lazily moved his finger under his moist nose and +adjusted the badly tied muffler about his neck. + + + +CHAPTER IV WE COME FROM ORYOL + +The same council-chamber of the military district court which had +condemned Yanson had also condemned to death a peasant of the +Government of Oryol, of the District of Yeletzk, Mikhail Golubets, +nicknamed Tsiganok, also Tatarin. His latest crime, proven beyond +question, had been the murder of three people and armed robbery. Behind +that, his dark past disappeared in a depth of mystery. There were vague +rumors that he had participated in a series of other murders and +robberies, and in his path there was felt to be a dark trail of blood, +fire, and drunken debauchery. He called himself murderer with utter +frankness and sincerity, and scornfully regarded those who, according +to the latest fashion, styled themselves “expropriators.” Of his last +crime, since it was useless for him to deny anything, he spoke freely +and in detail, but in answer to questions about his past, he merely +gritted his teeth, whistled, and said: + +“Search for the wind of the fields!” + +When he was annoyed in cross-examination, Tsiganok assumed a serious +and dignified air: + +“All of us from Oryol are thoroughbreds,” he would say gravely and +deliberately. “Oryol and Kroma are the homes of first-class thieves. +Karachev and Livna are the breeding-places of thieves. And Yeletz—is +the parent of all thieves. Now—what else is there to say?” + +He was nicknamed Tsiganok (gypsy) because of his appearance and his +thievish manner. He was black-haired, lean, with yellow spots on his +prominent, “Tartar-like cheek-bones. His glance was swift, brief, but +fearfully direct and searching, and the thing upon which he looked for +a moment seemed to lose something, seemed to deliver up to him a part +of itself, and to become something else. It was just as unpleasant and +repugnant to take a cigarette at which he looked, as though it had +already been in his mouth. There was a certain constant restlessness in +him, now twisting him like a rag, now throwing him about like a body of +coiling live wires. And he drank water almost by the bucket. + +To all questions during the trial he answered shortly, firmly, jumping +up quickly, and at times he seemed to answer even with pleasure. + +“Correct!” he would say. + +Sometimes he emphasized it. + +“Cor-r-rect!” + +At one time, suddenly, when they were speaking of something that would +hardly have seemed to suggest it, he jumped to his feet and asked the +presiding judge: + +“Will you allow me to whistle?” + +“What for?” asked the judge, surprised. + +“They said that I gave the signal to my comrades. I would like to show +you how. It is very interesting.” + +The judge consented, somewhat wonderingly. Tsiganok quickly placed four +fingers in his mouth, two fingers of each hand, rolled his eyes +fiercely—and then the dead air of the courtroom was suddenly rent by a +real, wild, murderer’s whistle—at which frightened horses leap and rear +on their hind legs and human faces involuntarily blanch. The mortal +anguish of him who is to be assassinated, the wild joy of the murderer, +the dreadful warning, the call, the gloom and loneliness of a stormy +autumn night—all this rang in his piercing shriek, which was neither +human nor beastly. + +The presiding officer shouted—then waved his arm at Tsiganok, and +Tsiganok obediently became silent. And, like an artist who had +triumphantly performed a difficult aria, he sat down, wiped his wet +fingers upon his coat, and surveyed those present with an air of +satisfaction. + +“What a robber!” said one of the judges, rubbing his ear. + +Another one, however, with a wild Russian beard, but with the eyes of a +Tartar, like those of Tsiganok, gazed pensively above Tsiganok’s head, +then smiled and remarked: + +“It is indeed interesting.” + +With light hearts, without mercy, without the slightest pangs of +conscience, the judges brought out against Tsiganok a verdict of death. + +“Correct!” said Tsiganok, when the verdict was pronounced. “In the open +field and on a cross-beam! Correct!” + +And turning to the convoy, he hurled with bravado: + +“Well, are we not going? Come on, you sour-coat. And hold your gun—I +might take it away from you!” + +The soldier looked at him sternly, with fear, exchanged glances with +his comrade, and felt the lock of his gun. The other did the same. And +all the way to the prison the soldiers felt that they were not walking +but flying through the air—as if hypnotized by the prisoner, they felt +neither the ground beneath their feet, nor the passage of time, nor +themselves. + +Mishka Tsiganok, like Yanson, had had to spend seventeen days in prison +before his execution. And all seventeen days passed as though they were +one day—they were bound up in one inextinguishable thought of escape, +of freedom, of life. The restlessness of Tsiganok, which was now +repressed by the walls and the bars and the dead window through which +nothing could be seen, turned all its fury upon himself and burned his +soul like coals scattered upon boards. As though he were in a drunken +vapor, bright but incomplete images swarmed upon him, failing and then +becoming confused, and then again rushing through his mind in an +unrestrainable blinding whirlwind—and all were bent toward escape, +toward liberty, toward life. With his nostrils expanded, like those of +a horse, Tsiganok smelt the air for hours long—it seemed to him that he +could smell the odor of hemp, of the smoke of fire—the colorless and +biting smell of burning. Now he whirled about in the room like a top, +touching the walls, tapping them nervously with his fingers from time +to time, taking aim, boring the ceiling with his gaze, filing the +prison bars. By his restlessness, he had tired out the soldiers who +watched him through the little window, and who, several times, in +despair, had threatened to shoot. Tsiganok would retort, coarsely and +derisively, and the quarrel would end peacefully because the dispute +would soon turn into boorish, unoffending abuse, after which shooting +would have seemed absurd and impossible. + +Tsiganok slept during the nights soundly, without stirring, in +unchanging yet live motionlessness, like a wire spring in temporary +inactivity. But as soon as he arose, he immediately commenced to walk, +to plan, to grope about. His hands were always dry and hot, but his +heart at times would suddenly grow cold, as if a cake of unmelting ice +had been placed upon his chest, sending a slight, dry shiver through +his whole body. At such times, Tsiganok, always dark in complexion, +would turn black, assuming the shade of bluish cast-iron. And he +acquired a curious habit; as though he had eaten too much of something +sickeningly sweet, he kept licking his lips, smacking them, and would +spit on the floor, hissingly, through his teeth. When he spoke, he did +not finish his words, so rapidly did his thoughts run that his tongue +was unable to compass them. + +One day the chief warden, accompanied by a soldier, entered his cell. +He looked askance at the floor and said gruffly: + +“Look! How dirty he has made it!” + +Tsiganok retorted quickly: + +“You’ve made the whole world dirty, you fat-face, and yet I haven’t +said anything to you. What brings you here?” + +The warden, speaking as gruffly as before, asked him whether he would +act as executioner. Tsiganok burst out laughing, showing his teeth. + +“You can’t find any one else? That’s good! Go ahead, hang! Ha! ha! ha! +The necks are there, the rope is there, but there is nobody to string +it up. By God! that’s good!” + +“You’ll save your neck if you do it.” + +“Of course—I couldn’t hang them if I were dead. Well said, you fool!” + +“Well, what do you say? Is it all the same to you?” + +“And how do you hang them here? I suppose they’re choked on the sly.” + +“No, with music,” snarled the warden. + +“Well, what a fool! Of course it can be done with music. This way!” and +he began to sing, with a bold and daring swing. + +“You have lost your wits, my friend,” said the warden. “What do you +say? Speak sensibly.” + +Tsiganok grinned. + +“How eager you are! Come another time and I’ll tell you.” + +After that, into that chaos of bright, yet incomplete images which +oppressed Tsiganok by their impetuosity, a new image came—how good it +would be to become a hangman in a red shirt. He pictured to himself +vividly a square crowded with people, a high scaffold, and he, +Tsiganok, in a red shirt walking about upon the scaffold with an ax. +The sun shone overhead, gaily flashing from the ax, and everything was +so gay and bright that even the man whose head was soon to be chopped +off was smiling. And behind the crowd, wagons and the heads of horses +could be seen—the peasants had come from the village; and beyond them, +further, he could see the village itself. + +“Ts-akh!” + +Tsiganok smacked his lips, licking them, and spat. And suddenly he felt +as though a fur cap had been pushed over his head to his very mouth—it +became black and stifling, and his heart again became like a cake of +unmelting ice, sending a slight, dry shiver through his whole body. + +The warden came in twice again, and Tsiganok, showing his teeth, said: + +“How eager you are! Come in again!” + +Finally one day the warden shouted through the casement window as he +passed rapidly: + +“You’ve let your chance slip by, you fool! We’ve found somebody else.” + +“The devil take you! Hang yourself!” snarled Tsiganok, and he stopped +dreaming of the execution. + +But toward the end, the nearer he approached the time, the weight of +the fragments of his broken images became unbearable. Tsiganok now felt +like standing still, like spreading his legs and standing—but a +whirling current of thoughts carried him away and there was nothing at +which he could clutch—everything about him swam. And his sleep also +became uneasy. Dreams even more violent than his thoughts appeared—new +dreams, solid, heavy, like wooden painted blocks. And it was no longer +like a current, but like an endless fall to an endless depth, a +whirling flight through the whole visible world of colors. + +When Tsiganok was free he had worn only a pair of dashing mustaches, +but in the prison a short, black, bristly beard grew on his face and it +made him look fearsome, insane. At times Tsiganok really lost his +senses and whirled absurdly about in the cell, still tapping upon the +rough, plastered walls nervously. And he drank water like a horse. + +At times toward evening when they lit the lamp, Tsiganok would stand on +all fours in the middle of his cell and would howl the quivering howl +of a wolf. He was peculiarly serious while doing it, and would howl as +though he were performing an important and indispensable act. He would +fill his chest with air and then exhale it, slowly in a prolonged +tremulous howl, and, cocking his eyes, would listen intently as the +sound issued forth. And the very quiver in his voice seemed in a manner +intentional. He did not scream wildly, but drew out each note carefully +in that mournful wail full of untold sorrow and terror. + +Then he would suddenly break off howling and for several minutes would +remain silent, still standing on all fours. Then suddenly he would +mutter softly, staring at the ground: + +“My darlings, my sweethearts!... My darlings, my sweethearts! have +pity.... My darlings!... My sweethearts!” + +And it seemed again as if he were listening intently to his own voice. +As he said each word he would listen. + +Then he would jump up and for a whole hour would curse continually. + +He cursed picturesquely, shouting and rolling his blood-shot eyes. + +“If you hang me—hang me!” and he would burst out cursing again. + +And the sentinel, in the meantime white as chalk, weeping with pain and +fright, would knock at the door with the butt-end of the gun and cry +helplessly: + +“I’ll fire! I’ll kill you as sure as I live! Do you hear?” + +But he dared not shoot. If there was no actual rebellion they never +fired at those who had been condemned to death. And Tsiganok would +gnash his teeth, would curse and spit. His brain thus racked on a +monstrously sharp blade between life and death was falling to pieces +like a lump of dry clay. + +When they entered the cell at midnight to lead Tsiganok to the +execution he began to bustle about and seemed to have recovered his +spirits. Again he had that sweet taste in his mouth, and his saliva +collected abundantly, but his cheeks turned rosy and in his eyes began +to glisten his former somewhat savage slyness. Dressing himself he +asked the official: + +“Who is going to do the hanging? A new man? I suppose he hasn’t learned +his job yet.” + +“You needn’t worry about it,” answered the official dryly. + +“I can’t help worrying, your Honor. I am going to be hanged, not you. +At least don’t be stingy with the government’s soap on the noose.” + +“All right, all right! Keep quiet!” + +“This man here has eaten all your soap,” said Tsiganok, pointing to the +warden. “See how his face shines.” + +“Silence!” + +“Don’t be stingy!” + +And Tsiganok burst out laughing. But he began to feel that it was +getting ever sweeter in his mouth, and suddenly his legs began to feel +strangely numb. Still, on coming out into the yard, he managed to +exclaim: + +“The carriage of the Count of Bengal!” + + + +CHAPTER V KISS—AND SAY NOTHING + +The verdict concerning the five terrorists was pronounced finally and +confirmed upon the same day. The condemned were not told when the +execution would take place, but they knew from the usual procedure that +they would be hanged the same night, or, at the very latest, upon the +following night. And when it was proposed to them that they meet their +relatives upon the following Thursday they understood that the +execution would take place on Friday at dawn. + +Tanya Kovalchuk had no near relatives, and those whom she had were +somewhere in the wilderness in Little Russia, and it was not likely +that they even knew of the trial or of the coming execution. Musya and +Werner, as unidentified people, were not supposed to have relatives, +and only two, Sergey Golovin and Vasily Kashirin, were to meet their +parents. Both of them looked upon that meeting with terror and anguish, +yet they dared not refuse the old people the last word, the last kiss. + +Sergey Golovin was particularly tortured by the thought of the coming +meeting. He dearly loved his father and mother; he had seen them but a +short while before, and now he was in a state of terror as to what +would happen when they came to see him. The execution itself, in all +its monstrous horror, in its brain-stunning madness, he could imagine +more easily, and it seemed less terrible than these other few moments +of meeting, brief and unsatisfactory, which seemed to reach beyond +time, beyond life itself. How to look, what to think, what to say, his +mind could not determine. The most simple and ordinary act, to take his +father by the hand, to kiss him, and to say, “How do you do, father?” +seemed to him unspeakably horrible in its monstrous, inhuman, absurd +deceitfulness. + +After the sentence the condemned were not placed together in one cell, +as Tanya Kovalchuk had supposed they would be, but each was put in +solitary confinement, and all the morning, until eleven o’clock, when +his parents came, Sergey Golovin paced his cell furiously, tugged at +his beard, frowned pitiably and muttered inaudibly. Sometimes he would +stop abruptly, would breathe deeply and then exhale like a man who has +been too long under water. But he was so healthy, his young life was so +strong within him, that even in the moments of most painful suffering +his blood played under his skin, reddening his cheeks, and his blue +eyes shone brightly and frankly. + +But everything was far different from what he had anticipated. + +Nikolay Sergeyevich Golovin, Sergey’s father, a retired colonel, was +the first to enter the room where the meeting took place. He was all +white—his face, his beard, his hair, and his hands—as if he were a snow +statue attired in man’s clothes. He had on the same old but +well-cleaned coat, smelling of benzine, with new shoulder-straps +crosswise, that he had always worn, and he entered firmly, with an air +of stateliness, with strong and steady steps. He stretched out his +white, thin hand and said loudly: + +“How do you do, Sergey?” + +Behind him Sergey’s mother entered with short steps, smiling strangely. +But she also pressed his hands and repeated loudly: + +“How do you do, Seryozhenka?” + +She kissed him on the lips and sat down silently. She did not rush over +to him; she did not burst into tears; she did not break into a sob; she +did not do any of the terrible things which Sergey had feared. She just +kissed him and silently sat down. And with her trembling hands she even +adjusted her black silk dress. + +Sergey did not know that the colonel, having locked himself all the +previous night in his little study, had deliberated upon this ritual +with all his power. “We must not aggravate, but ease the last moments +of our son,” resolved the colonel firmly, and he carefully weighed +every possible phase of the conversation, every act and movement that +might take place on the following day. But somehow he became confused, +forgetting what he had prepared, and he wept bitterly in the corner of +the oilcloth-covered couch. In the morning he explained to his wife how +she should behave at the meeting. + +“The main thing is, kiss—and say nothing!” he taught her. “Later you +may speak—after a while—but when you kiss him, be silent. Don’t speak +right after the kiss, do you understand? Or you will say what you +should not say.” + +“I understand, Nikolay Sergeyevich,” answered the mother, weeping. + +“And you must not weep. For God’s sake, do not weep! You will kill him +if you weep, old woman!” + +“Why do you weep?” + +“With women one cannot help weeping. But you must not weep, do you +hear?” + +“Very well, Nikolay Sergeyevich.” + +Riding in the drozhky, he had intended to school her in the +instructions again, but he forgot. And so they rode in silence, bent, +both gray and old, and they were lost in thought, while the city was +gay and noisy. It was Shrovetide, and the streets were crowded. + +They sat down. Then the colonel stood up, assumed a studied pose, +placing his right hand upon the border of his coat. Sergey sat for an +instant, looked closely upon the wrinkled face of his mother and then +jumped up. + +“Be seated, Seryozhenka,” begged the mother. + +“Sit down, Sergey,” repeated the father. + +They became silent. The mother smiled. + +“How we have petitioned for you, Seryozhenka! Father—” + +“You should not have done that, mother——” + +The colonel spoke firmly: + +“We had to do it, Sergey, so that you should not think your parents had +forsaken you.” + +They became silent again. It was terrible for them to utter even a +word, as though each word in the language had lost its individual +meaning and meant but one thing—Death. Sergey looked at his father’s +coat, which smelt of benzine, and thought: “They have no servant now, +consequently he must have cleaned it himself. How is it that I never +before noticed when he cleaned his coat? I suppose he does it in the +morning.” Suddenly he asked: + +“And how is sister? Is she well?” + +“Ninochka does not know anything,” the mother answered hastily. + +The colonel interrupted her sternly: “Why should you tell a falsehood? +The child read it in the newspapers. Let Sergey know that +everybody—that those who are dearest to him—were thinking of him—at +this time—and—” + +He could not say any more and stopped. Suddenly the mother’s face +contracted, then it spread out, became agitated, wet and wild-looking. +Her discolored eyes stared blindly, and her breathing became more +frequent, and briefer, louder. + +“Se—Se—Se—Ser—” she repeated without moving her lips. “Ser—” + +“Dear mother!” + +The colonel strode forward, and all quivering in every fold of his +coat, in every wrinkle of his face, not understanding how terrible he +himself looked in his death-like whiteness, in his heroic, desperate +firmness. He said to his wife: + +“Be silent! Don’t torture him! Don’t torture him! He has to die! Don’t +torture him!” + +Frightened, she had already become silent, but he still shook his +clenched fists before him and repeated: + +“Don’t torture him!” + +Then he stepped back, placed his trembling hands behind his back, and +loudly, with an expression of forced calm, asked with pale lips: + +“When?” + +“To-morrow morning,” answered Sergey, his lips also pale. + +The mother looked at the ground, chewing her lips, as if she did not +hear anything. And continuing to chew, she uttered these simple words, +strangely, as though they dropped like lead: + +“Ninochka told me to kiss you, Seryozhenka.” + +“Kiss her for me,” said Sergey. + +“Very well. The Khvostovs send you their regards.” + +“Which Khvostovs? Oh, yes!” + +The colonel interrupted: + +“Well, we must go. Get up, mother; we must go.” The two men lifted the +weakened old woman. + +“Bid him good-by!” ordered the colonel. “Make the sign of the cross.” + +She did everything as she was told. But as she made the sign of the +cross, and kissed her son a brief kiss, she shook her head and murmured +weakly: + +“No, it isn’t the right way! It is not the right way! What will I say? +How will I say it? No, it is not the right way!” + +“Good-by, Sergey!” said the father. They shook hands, and kissed each +other quickly but heartily. + +“You—” began Sergey. + +“Well?” asked the father abruptly. + +“No, no! It is not the right way! How shall I say it?” repeated the +mother weakly, nodding her head. She had sat down again and was rocking +herself back and forth. + +“You—” Sergey began again. Suddenly his face wrinkled pitiably, +childishly, and his eyes filled with tears immediately. Through the +sparkling gleams of his tears he looked closely into the white face of +his father, whose eyes had also filled. + +“You, father, are a noble man!” + +“What is that? What are you saying?” said the colonel, surprised. And +then suddenly, as if broken in two, he fell with his head upon his +son’s shoulder. He had been taller than Sergey, but now he became +short, and his dry, downy head lay like a white ball upon his son’s +shoulder. And they kissed silently and passionately: Sergey kissed the +silvery white hair, and the old man kissed the prisoner’s garb. + +“And I?” suddenly said a loud voice. + +They looked around. Sergey’s mother was standing, her head thrown back, +looking at them angrily, almost with contempt. + +“What is it, mother?” cried the colonel. + +“And I?” she said, shaking her head with insane intensity. “You +kiss—and I? You men! Yes? And I? And I?” + +“Mother!” Sergey rushed over to her. + +What took place then it is unnecessary and impossible to describe... . + +The last words of the colonel were: + +“I give you my blessing for your death, Seryozha. Die bravely, like an +officer.” + +And they went away. Somehow they went away. They had been there, they +had stood, they had spoken—and suddenly they had gone. Here sat his +mother, there stood his father—and suddenly somehow they had gone away. +Returning to the cell, Sergey lay down on the cot, his face turned +toward the wall, in order to hide it from the soldiers, and he wept for +a long time. Then, exhausted by his tears, he slept soundly. + +To Vasily Kashirin only his mother came. His father, who was a wealthy +tradesman, did not want to come. Vasily met the old woman, as he was +pacing up and down the room, trembling with cold, although it was warm, +even hot. And the conversation was brief, painful. + +“It wasn’t worth coming, mother. You’ll only torture yourself and me.” + +“Why did you do it, Vasya? Why did you do it? Oh, Lord!” The old woman +burst out weeping, wiping her face with the ends of her black, woolen +kerchief. And with the habit which he and his brothers had always had +of crying at their mother, who did not understand anything, he stopped, +and, shuddering as with cold, spoke angrily: + +“There! You see! I knew it! You understand nothing, mother! Nothing!” + +“Well—well—all right! Do you feel—cold?” + +“Cold!” Vasily answered bluntly, and again began to pace the room, +looking at his mother askance, as if annoyed. + +“Perhaps you have caught cold?” + +“Oh, mother what is a cold, when—” and he waved his hand helplessly. + +The old woman was about to say: “And your father ordered wheat cakes +beginning with Monday,” but she was frightened, and said: + +“I told him: ‘It is your son, you should go, give him your blessing.’ +No, the old beast persisted—” + +“Let him go to the devil! What sort of father has he been to me? He has +been a scoundrel all his life, and remains a scoundrel!” + +“Vasenka! Do you speak of your father like this?” said the old woman +reproachfully, straightening herself. + +“About my father!” + +“About your own father?” + +“He is no father to me!” + +It was strange and absurd. Before him was the thought of death, while +here something small, empty and trivial arose, and his words cracked +like the shells of nuts under foot. And almost crying with +sorrow—because of the eternal misunderstanding which all his life long +had stood like a wall between him and those nearest to him, and which +even now, in the last hour before death, peered at him stupidly and +strangely through small, widely opened eyes—Vasily exclaimed: + +“Don’t you understand that I am to be hanged soon? Hanged! Do you +understand it? Hanged!” + +“You shouldn’t have harmed anybody and nobody would—” cried the old +woman. + +“My God! What is this? Even beasts do not act like this! Am I not your +son?” + +He began to cry, and seated himself in a corner. The old woman also +burst out crying in her corner. Powerless, even for an instant, to +blend in a feeling of love and to offset by it the horror of impending +death, they wept their cold tears of loneliness which did not warm +their hearts. The mother said: + +“You ask whether I am a mother to you? You reproach me! And I have +grown completely gray during these days. I have become an old woman. +And yet you say—you reproach me!” + +“Well, mother, it is all right. Forgive me. It is time for you to go. +Kiss my brothers for me.” + +“Am I not your mother? Do I not feel sorry?” + +At last she went away. She wept bitterly, wiping her face with the +edges of her kerchief, and she did not see the road. And the farther +she got from the prison the more bitterly she wept. She retraced her +steps to the prison, and then she strangely lost her way in the city in +which she had been born, in which she lived to her old age. She +strolled into a deserted little garden with a few old, gnarled trees, +and she seated herself upon a wet bench, from which the snow had +melted. + +And suddenly she understood. He was to be hanged upon the morrow! + +The old woman jumped up, about to run, but suddenly her head began to +swim terribly and she fell to the ground. The icy path was wet and +slippery, and she could not rise. She turned about, lifted herself on +her elbows and knelt, then fell back on her side. The black kerchief +had slipped down, baring upon the back of her head a bald spot amid her +muddy-gray hair; and then somehow it seemed to her that she was +feasting at a wedding, that her son was getting married, and she had +been drinking wine and had become intoxicated. + +“I can’t! My God! I can’t!” she cried, as though declining something. +Swaying her head, she crawled over the wet, frozen crust, and all the +time it seemed to her that they were pouring out more wine for her, +more wine! + +And her heart had already begun to pain her from her intoxicated +laughter, from the rejoicing, from the wild dancing—and they kept on +pouring more wine for her—pouring more wine! + + + +CHAPTER VI THE HOURS ARE RUSHING + +On the fortress where the condemned terrorists were imprisoned there +was a steeple with an old-fashioned clock upon it. At every hour, at +every half-hour, and at every quarter-hour the clock rang out in +long-drawn, mournful chimes, slowly melting high in the air, like the +distant and plaintive call of migrating birds. In the daytime, this +strange and sad music was lost in the noise of the city, of the wide +and crowded street which passed near the fortress. The cars buzzed +along, the hoofs of the horses beat upon the pavements, the rocking +automobiles honked in the distance, peasant izvozchiks had come +especially from the outskirts of the city for the Shrovetide season and +the tinkling of the bells upon the necks of their little horses filled +the air. The prattle of voices—an intoxicated, merry Shrovetide prattle +of voices arose everywhere. And in the midst of these various noises +there was the young thawing spring, the muddy pools on the meadows, the +trees of the squares which had suddenly become black. From the sea a +warm breeze was blowing in broad, moist gusts. It was almost as if one +could have seen the tiny fresh particles of air carried away, merged +into the free, endless expanse of the atmosphere—could have heard them +laughing in their flight. + +At night the street grew quiet in the lonely light of the large, +electric sun. And then, the enormous fortress, within whose walls there +was not a single light, passed into darkness and silence, separating +itself from the ever living, stirring city by a wall of silence, +motionlessness and darkness. Then it was that the strokes of the clock +became audible. A strange melody, foreign to earth, was slowly and +mournfully born and died out up in the heights. It was born again; +deceiving the ear, it rang plaintively and softly—it broke off—and rang +again. Like large, transparent, glassy drops, hours and minutes +descended from an unknown height into a metallic, softly resounding +bell. + +This was the only sound that reached the cells, by day and night, where +the condemned remained in solitary confinement. Through the roof, +through the thickness of the stone walls, it penetrated, stirring the +silence—it passed unnoticed, to return again, also unnoticed. Sometimes +they awaited it in despair, living from one sound to the next, trusting +the silence no longer. Only important criminals were sent to this +prison. There were special rules there, stern, grim and severe, like +the corner of the fortress wall, and if there be nobility in cruelty, +then the dull, dead, solemnly mute silence, which caught the slightest +rustle and breathing, was noble. + +And in this solemn silence, broken by the mournful tolling of the +departing minutes, separated from all that lives, five human beings, +two women and three men, waited for the advent of night, of dawn and +the execution, and all of them prepared for it, each in his or her own +way. + + + +CHAPTER VII THERE IS NO DEATH + +Just as Tanya Kovalchuk had thought all her life only of others and +never of herself, so now she suffered and grieved painfully, but only +for her comrades. She pictured death, only as awaiting them, as +something tormenting only to Sergey Golovin, to Musya, to the others—as +for herself, it did not concern her. + +As a recompense for her firmness and restraint in the courtroom she +wept for long hours, as old women who have experienced great misery, or +as very sympathetic and kind-hearted young people know how to weep. And +the fear that perhaps Seryozha was without tobacco or Werner without +the strong tea to which he was accustomed, in addition to the fact that +they were to die, caused her no less pain than the idea of the +execution itself. Death was something inevitable and even unimportant, +of which it was not worth while to think; but for a man in prison, +before his execution, to be left without tobacco—that was altogether +unbearable. She recalled and went over in her mind all the pleasant +details of their life together, and then she grew faint with fear when +she pictured to herself the meeting between Sergey and his parents. + +She felt particularly sorry for Musya. It had long seemed to her that +Musya loved Werner, and although this was not a fact, she still dreamed +of something good and bright for both of them. When she had been free, +Musya had worn a silver ring, on which was the design of a skull, +bones, and a crown of thorns about them. Tanya Kovalchuk had often +looked upon the ring as a symbol of doom, and she would ask Musya, now +in jest, now in earnest, to remove the ring. + +“Make me a present of it,” she had begged. + +“No, Tanechka, I will not give it to you. But perhaps you will soon +have another ring upon your finger.” + +For some reason or other they all in turn had thought that she would +doubtless soon marry, and this had offended her—she wanted no husband. +And recalling these half-jesting conversations with Musya, and the fact +that now Musya was actually condemned to death, she choked with tears +in her maternal pity. And each time the clock struck she raised her +tear-stained face and listened—how were they in the other cells +receiving this drawn-out, persistent call of death? + +But Musya was happy. + +With her hands folded behind her back, dressed in a prisoner’s garb +which was much too large for her, and which made her look very much +like a man—like a stripling dressed in some one else’s clothes—she +paced her cell evenly and tirelessly. The sleeves of the coat were too +long for her, and she turned them up, and her thin, almost childish, +emaciated hands peeped out of the wide holes like a beautiful flower +out of a coarse earthen jug. The rough material of the coat rubbed her +thin white neck, and sometimes Musya would free her throat with both +hands and would cautiously feel the spot where the irritated skin was +red and smarted. + +Musya paced the cell, and, blushing in agitation, she imagined that she +was justifying herself before the people. She tried to justify herself +for the fact that she, who was so young, so insignificant, who had done +so little, and who was not at all a heroine, was yet to undergo the +same honorable and beautiful death by which real heroes and martyrs had +died before her. With unshakable faith in human kindness, in their +compassion, in their love, she pictured to herself how people were now +agitated on her account, how they suffered, how they pitied her, and +she felt so ashamed that she blushed, as if, by dying upon the +scaffold, she had committed some tremendous, awkward blunder. + +At the last meeting with their counsel she had asked him to bring her +poison, but suddenly she had changed her mind. What if he and the +others, she thought, should consider that she was doing it merely to +become conspicuous, or out of cowardice, that instead of dying modestly +and unnoticed, she was attempting to glorify herself. And she added +hastily: + +“No, it isn’t necessary.” + +And now she desired but one thing—to be able to explain to people, to +prove to them so that they should have not the slightest doubt that she +was not at all a heroine, that it was not terrible to die, that they +should not feel sorry for her, nor trouble themselves about her. She +wished to be able to explain to them that she was not at all to blame +that she, who was so young and so insignificant, was to undergo such a +martyr’s death, and that so much trouble should be made on her account. + +Like a person who is actually accused of a crime, Musya sought +justification. She endeavored to find something that would at least +make her sacrifice more momentous, which might give it real value. She +reasoned: + +“Of course, I am young and could have lived for a long time. But—” + +And as a candle darkens in the glare of the rising sun, so her youth +and her life seemed dull and dark compared to that great and +resplendent radiance which would shine above her simple head. There was +no justification. + +But perhaps that peculiar something which she bore in her +soul—boundless love, boundless eagerness to do great deeds, her +boundless contempt for herself—was a justification in itself. She felt +that she was really not to blame that she was hindered from doing the +things she could have done, which she had wished to do—that she had +been smitten upon the threshold of the temple, at the foot of the +altar. + +But if that were so, if a person is appreciated not only for what he +has done, but also for what he had intended to do—then—then she was +worthy of the crown of the martyr! + +“Is it possible?” thought Musya bashfully. “Is it possible that I am +worthy of it? That I deserve that people should weep for me, should be +agitated over my fate, over such a little and insignificant girl?” + +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.” + +“No, I will not die.” + +“You will be executed. Here is the noose.” + +“I will be executed, but I will not die. How can I die, when I am +already—now—immortal?” + +And the scientists and philosophers and hangmen would retreat, +speaking—with a shudder: + +“Do not touch this place. It is holy.” + +What else was Musya thinking about? She was thinking of many things, +for to her the thread of life was not broken by Death, but kept winding +along calmly and evenly. She thought of her comrades, of those who were +far away, and who in pain and sorrow were living through the execution +together with them, and of those near by who were to mount the scaffold +with her. She was surprised at Vasily—that he should have been so +disturbed—he, who had always been so brave, and who had jested with +Death. Thus, only on Tuesday morning, when all together they had +attached explosive projectiles to their belts, which several hours +later were to tear them into pieces, Tanya Kovalchuk’s hands had +trembled with nervousness, and it had become necessary to put her +aside, while Vasily jested, made merry, turned about, and was even so +reckless that Werner had said sternly: + +“You must not be too familiar with Death.” + +What was he afraid of now? But this incomprehensible fear was so +foreign to Musya’s soul that she ceased searching for the cause of +it—and suddenly she was seized with a desperate desire to see Seryozha +Golovin, to laugh with him. She meditated a little while, and then an +even more desperate desire came over her to see Werner and to convince +him of something. And imagining to herself that Werner was in the next +cell, driving his heels into the ground with his distinct, measured +steps, Musya spoke, as if addressing him: + +“No, Werner, my dear; it is all nonsense; it isn’t at all important +whether or not you are killed. You are a sensible man, but you seem to +be playing chess, and that by taking one figure after another the game +is won. The important thing, Werner, is that we ourselves are ready to +die. Do you understand? What do those people think? That there is +nothing more terrible than death. They themselves have invented Death, +they are themselves afraid of it, and they try to frighten us with it. +I should like to do this—I should like to go out alone before a whole +regiment of soldiers and fire upon them with a revolver. It would not +matter that I would be alone, while they would be thousands, or that I +might not kill any of them. It is that which is important—that they are +thousands. When thousands kill one, it means that the one has +conquered. That is true, Werner, my dear....” + +But this, too, became so clear to her that she did not feel like +arguing further—Werner must understand it himself. Perhaps her mind +simply did not want to stop at one thought—just as a bird that soars +with ease, which sees endless horizons, and to which all space, all the +depth, all the joy of the soft and caressing azure are accessible. The +bell of the clock rang unceasingly, disturbing the deep silence. And +into this harmonious, remote, beautiful sound the thoughts of the +people flowed, and also began to ring for her; and the smoothly gliding +images turned into music. It was just as if, on a quiet, dark night, +Musya was riding along a broad, even road, while the easy springs of +the carriage rocked her and the little bells tinkled. All alarm and +agitation had passed, the fatigued body had dissolved in the darkness, +and her joyously wearied fancy calmly created bright images, carried +away by their color and their peaceful tranquillity. Musya recalled +three of her comrades who had been hanged but a short time before, and +their faces seemed bright and happy and near to her—nearer than those +in life. Thus does a man think with joy in the morning of the house of +his friends where he is to go in the evening, and a greeting rises to +his smiling lips. + +Musya became very tired from walking. She lay down cautiously on the +cot and continued to dream with slightly closed eyes. The clock-bell +rang unceasingly, stirring the mute silence, and bright, singing images +floated calmly before her. Musya thought: + +“Is it possible that this is Death? My God! How beautiful it is! Or is +it Life? I do not know. I do not know. I will look and listen.” + +Her hearing had long given way to her imagination—from the first moment +of her imprisonment. Inclined to be very musical, her ear had become +keen in the silence, and on this background of silence, out of the +meagre bits of reality, the footsteps of the guards in the corridors, +the ringing of the clock, the rustling of the wind on the iron roof, +the creaking of the lantern—it created complete musical pictures. At +first Musya was afraid of them, brushed them away from her as if they +were the hallucinations of a sickly mind. But later she understood that +she herself was well, and that this was no derangement of any kind—and +she gave herself up to the dreams calmly. + +And now, suddenly, she seemed to hear clearly and distinctly the sounds +of military music. In astonishment, she opened her eyes, lifted her +head—outside the window was black night, and the clock was striking. +“Again,” she thought calmly, and closed her eyes. And as soon as she +did so the music resounded anew. She could hear distinctly how the +soldiers, a whole regiment, were coming from behind the corner of the +fortress, on the right, and now they were passing her window. Their +feet beat time with measured steps upon the frozen ground: One—two! +One—two! She could even hear at times the leather of the boots +creaking, how suddenly some one’s foot slipped and immediately +recovered its steps. And the music came ever nearer—it was an entirely +unfamiliar but a very loud and spirited holiday march. Evidently there +was some sort of celebration in the fortress. + +Now the band came up alongside of her window and the cell was filled +with merry, rhythmic, harmoniously blended sounds. One large brass +trumpet brayed harshly out of tune, now too late, now comically running +ahead—Musya could almost see the little soldier playing it, a great +expression of earnestness on his face—and she laughed. + +Then everything moved away. The footsteps died out—One—two! One—two! At +a distance the music sounded still more beautiful and cheerful. The +trumpet resounded now and then with its merry, loud brass voice, out of +tune,—and then everything died away. And the clock on the tower struck +again, slowly, mournfully, hardly stirring the silence. + +“They are gone!” thought Musya, with a feeling of slight sadness. She +felt sorry for the departing sounds, which had been so cheerful and so +comical. She was even sorry for the departed little soldiers, because +those busy soldiers, with their brass trumpets and their creaking +boots, were of an entirely different sort, not at all like those at +whom she had felt like firing a revolver. + +“Come again!” she begged tenderly. And more came. The figures bent over +her, they surrounded her in a transparent cloud and lifted her up, +where the migrating birds were soaring and screaming, like heralds. On +the right of her, on the left, above and below her—they screamed like +heralds. They called, they announced from afar their flight. They +flapped their wide wings and the darkness supported them, even as the +light had supported them. And on their convex breasts, cleaving the air +asunder, the city far below reflected a blue light. Musya’s heart beat +ever more evenly, her breathing grew ever more calm and quiet. She was +falling asleep. Her face looked fatigued and pale. Beneath her eyes +were dark circles, her girlish, emaciated hands seemed so thin,—but +upon her lips was a smile. To-morrow, with the rise of the sun, this +human face would be distorted with an inhuman grimace, her brain would +be covered with thick blood, and her eyes would bulge from their +sockets and look glassy,—but now she slept quietly and smiled in her +great immortality. + +Musya fell asleep. + +And the life of the prison went on, deaf and sensitive, blind and +sharp-sighted, like eternal alarm itself. Somewhere people were +walking. Somewhere people were whispering. A gun clanked. It seemed as +if some one shouted. Perhaps no one shouted at all—perhaps it merely +seemed so in the silence. + +The little casement window in the door opened noiselessly. A dark, +mustached face appeared in the black hole. For a long time it stared at +Musya in astonishment—and then disappeared as noiselessly as it had +appeared. + +The bells rang and sang, for a long time, painfully. It seemed as if +the tired Hours were climbing up a high mountain toward midnight, and +that it was becoming ever harder and harder to ascend. They fall, they +slip, they slide down with a groan—and then again, they climb painfully +toward the black height. + +Somewhere people were walking. Somewhere people were whispering. And +they were already harnessing the horses to the black carriages without +lanterns. + + + +CHAPTER VIII THERE IS DEATH AS WELL AS LIFE + +Sergey Golovin never thought of death, as though it were something not +to be considered, something that did not concern him in the least. He +was a strong, healthy, cheerful youth, endowed with that calm, clear +joy of living which causes every evil thought and feeling that might +injure life to disappear from the organism without leaving any trace. +Just as all cuts, wounds and stings on his body healed rapidly, so all +that weighed upon his soul and wounded it immediately rose to the +surface and disappeared. And he brought into every work, even into his +enjoyments, the same calm and optimistic seriousness,—it mattered not +whether he was occupied with photography, with bicycling or with +preparations for a terroristic act. Everything in life was joyous, +everything in life was important, everything should be done well. + +And he did everything well: he was an excellent sailor, an expert shot +with the revolver. He was as faithful in friendship as in love, and a +fanatic believer in the “word of honor.” His comrades laughed at him, +saying that if the most notorious spy told him upon his word of honor +that he was not a spy, Sergey would believe him and would shake hands +with him as with any comrade. He had one fault,—he was convinced that +he could sing well, whereas in fact he had no ear for music and even +sang the revolutionary songs out of tune, and felt offended when his +friends laughed at him. + +“Either you are all asses, or I am an ass,” he would declare seriously +and even angrily. And all his friends as seriously declared: “You are +an ass. We can tell by your voice.” + +But, as is sometimes the case with good people, he was perhaps liked +more for this little foible than for his good qualities. + +He feared death so little and thought of it so little that on the fatal +morning, before leaving the house of Tanya Kovalchuk, he was the only +one who had breakfasted properly, with an appetite. He drank two +glasses of tea with milk, and a whole five-copeck roll of bread. Then +he glanced at Werner’s untouched bread and said: + +“Why don’t you eat? Eat. We must brace up.” + +“I don’t feel like eating.” + +“Then I’ll eat it. May I?” + +“You have a fine appetite, Seryozha.” + +Instead of answering, Sergey, his mouth full, began to sing in a dull +voice, out of tune: + +“Hostile whirlwinds are blowing over us...” + +After the arrest he at first grew sad; the work had not been done well, +they had failed; but then he thought: “There is something else now that +must be done well—and that is, to die,” and he cheered up again. And +however strange it may seem, beginning with the second morning in the +fortress, he commenced devoting himself to gymnastics according to the +unusually rational system of a certain German named Müller, which +absorbed his interest. He undressed himself completely and, to the +alarm and astonishment of the guard who watched him, he carefully went +through all the prescribed eighteen exercises. The fact that the guard +watched him and was apparently astonished, pleased him as a +propagandist of the Müller system; and although he knew that he would +get no answer he nevertheless spoke to the eye staring in the little +window: + +“It’s a good system, my friend, it braces you up. It should be +introduced in your regiment,” he shouted convincingly and kindly, so as +not to frighten the soldier, not suspecting that the guard considered +him a harmless lunatic. + +The fear of death came over him gradually. It was as if somebody were +striking his heart a powerful blow with the fist from below. This +sensation was rather painful than terrible. Then the sensation was +forgotten, but it returned again a few hours later, and each time it +grew more intense and of longer duration, and thus it began to assume +vague outlines of some great, even unbearable fear. + +“Is it possible that I am afraid?” thought Sergey in astonishment. +“What nonsense!” + +It was not he who was afraid,—it was his young, sound, strong body, +which could not be deceived either by the exercises prescribed by the +Müller system, or by the cold rub-downs. On the contrary, the stronger +and the fresher his body became after the cold water, the keener and +the more unbearable became the sensations of his recurrent fear. And +just at those moments when, during his freedom, he had felt a special +influx of the joy and power of life,—in the mornings after he had slept +soundly and gone through his physical exercises,—now there appeared +this deadening fear which was so foreign to his nature. He noticed this +and thought: + +“It is foolish, Sergey! To die more easily, you should weaken the body +and not strengthen it. It is foolish!” + +So he dropped his gymnastics and the rub-downs. To the soldier he +shouted, as if to explain and justify himself: + +“Never mind that I have stopped. It’s a good thing, my friend,—but not +for those who are to be hanged. But it’s very good for all others.” + +And, indeed, he began to feel somewhat better. He tried also to eat +less, so as to grow still weaker, but notwithstanding the lack of pure +air and exercises, his appetite was very good,—it was difficult for him +to control it, and he ate everything that was brought to him. Then he +began to manage differently—before starting to eat he would pour out +half into the pail, and this seemed to work. A dull drowsiness and +faintness came over him. + +“I’ll show you what I can do!” he threatened his body, and at the same +time sadly, yet tenderly he felt his flabby, softened muscles with his +hand. + +Soon, however, his body grew accustomed to this regime as well, and the +fear of death appeared again—not so keen, nor so burning, but more +disgusting, somewhat akin to a nauseating sensation. “It’s because they +are dragging it out so long,” thought Sergey. “It would be a good idea +to sleep all the time till the day of the execution,” and he tried to +sleep as much as possible. At first he succeeded, but later, either +because he had slept too much, or for some other reason, insomnia +appeared. And with it came eager, penetrating thoughts and a longing +for life. + +“I am not afraid of this devil!” he thought of Death. “I simply feel +sorry for my life. It is a splendid thing, no matter what the +pessimists say about it. What if they were to hang a pessimist? Ah, I +feel sorry for life, very sorry! And why does my beard grow now? It +didn’t grow before, but suddenly it grows—why?” + +He shook his head mournfully, heaving long, painful sighs. Silence—then +a sigh; then a brief silence again—followed by a longer, deeper sigh. + +Thus it went on until the trial and the terrible meeting with his +parents. When he awoke in his cell the next day he realized clearly +that everything between him and life was ended, that there were only a +few empty hours of waiting and then death would come,—and a strange +sensation took possession of him. He felt as though he had been +stripped, stripped entirely,—as if not only his clothes, but the sun, +the air, the noise of voices and his ability to do things had been +wrested from him. Death was not there as yet, but life was there no +longer,—there was something new, something astonishing, inexplicable, +not entirely reasonable and yet not altogether without +meaning,—something so deep and mysterious and supernatural that it was +impossible to understand. + +“Fie, you devil!” wondered Sergey, painfully. “What is this? Where am +I? I—who am I?” + +He examined himself attentively, with interest, beginning with his +large prison slippers, ending with his stomach where his coat +protruded. He paced the cell, spreading out his arms and continuing to +survey himself like a woman in a new dress which is too long for her. +He tried to turn his head, and it turned. And this strange, terrible, +uncouth creature was he, Sergey Golovin, and soon he would be no more! + +Everything became strange. + +He tried to walk across the cell—and it seemed strange to him that he +could walk. He tried to sit down—and it seemed strange to him that he +could sit. He tried to drink some water—and it seemed strange to him +that he could drink, that he could swallow, that he could hold the cup, +that he had fingers and that those fingers were trembling. He choked, +began to cough and while coughing, thought: “How strange it is that I +am coughing.” + +“Am I losing my reason?” thought Sergey, growing cold. “Am I coming to +that, too? The devil take them!” + +He rubbed his forehead with his hand, and this also seemed strange to +him. And then he remained breathless, motionless, petrified for hours, +suppressing every thought, all loud breathing, all motion,—for every +thought seemed to him but madness, every motion—madness. Time was no +more; it appeared transformed into space, airless and transparent, into +an enormous square upon which all were there—the earth and life and +people. He saw all that at one glance, all to the very end, to the +mysterious abyss—Death. And he was tortured not by the fact that Death +was visible, but that both Life and Death were visible at the same +time. The curtain which through eternity has hidden the mystery of life +and the mystery of death was pushed aside by a sacrilegious hand, and +the mysteries ceased to be mysteries—yet they remained +incomprehensible, like the Truth written in a foreign tongue. There +were no conceptions in his human mind, no words in his human language +that could define what he saw. And the words “I am afraid” were uttered +by him only because there were no other words, because no other +conceptions existed, nor could other conceptions exist which would +grasp this new, un-human condition. Thus would it be with a man if, +while remaining within the bounds of human reason, experience and +feelings, he were suddenly to see God Himself. He would see Him but +would not understand, even though he knew that it was God, and he would +tremble with inconceivable sufferings of incomprehension. + +“There is Müller for you!” he suddenly uttered loudly, with extreme +conviction, and shook his head. And with that unexpected break in his +feelings, of which the human soul is so capable, he laughed heartily +and cheerfully. + +“Oh, Müller! My dear Müller! Oh, you splendid German! After all you are +right, Müller, and I am an ass!” + +He paced the cell quickly several times and to the great astonishment +of the soldier who was watching him through the peephole, he quickly +undressed himself and cheerfully went through all the eighteen +exercises with the greatest care. He stretched and expanded his young, +somewhat emaciated body, sat down for a moment, drew deep breaths of +air and exhaled it, stood up on tip-toe, stretched his arms and his +feet. And after each exercise he announced, with satisfaction: + +“That’s it! That’s the real way, Müller!” His cheeks flushed; drops of +warm, pleasant perspiration came from the pores of his body, and his +heart beat soundly and evenly. + +“The fact is, Müller,” philosophized Sergey, expanding his chest so +that the ribs under his thin, tight skin were outlined clearly,—“the +fact is, that there is a nineteenth exercise—to hang by the neck +motionless. That is called execution. Do you understand, Müller? They +take a live man, let us say Sergey Golovin, they swaddle him as a doll +and they hang him by the neck until he is dead. It is a foolish +exercise, Müller, but it can’t be helped,—we have to do it.” + +He bent over on the right side and repeated: + +“We have to do it, Müller.” + + + +CHAPTER IX DREADFUL SOLITUDE + +Under the same ringing of the clock, separated from Sergey and Musya by +only a few empty cells, but yet so painfully desolate and alone in the +whole world as though no other soul existed, poor Vasily Kashirin was +passing the last hours of his life in terror and in anguish. + +Perspiring, his moist shirt clinging to his body, his once curly hair +disheveled, he tossed about in the cell convulsively and hopelessly, +like a man suffering from an unbearable physical torture. He would sit +down for awhile, then start to run again, he would press his forehead +against the wall, stop and seek something with his eyes—as if looking +for some medicine. His expression changed as though he had two +different faces. The former, the young face, had disappeared somewhere, +and a new one, a terrible face that had seemed to have come out of the +darkness, had taken its place. + +The fear of death had come upon him all at once and taken possession of +him completely and forcibly. In the morning, while facing almost +certain death, he had been care-free and had scorned it, but toward +evening when he was placed in a cell in solitary confinement, he was +whirled and carried away by a wave of mad fear. So long as he went of +his own free will to face danger and death, so long as he had death, +even though it seemed terrible, in his own hands, he felt at ease. He +was even cheerful; in the sensation of boundless freedom, of brave and +firm conviction of his fearless will, his little, shrunken, womanish +fear was drowned, leaving no trace. With an infernal machine at his +girdle, he made the cruel force of dynamite his own, also its fiery +death-bearing power. And as he walked along the street, amidst the +bustling, plain people, who were occupied with their affairs, who were +hurriedly avoiding the dangers from the horses of carriages and cars, +he seemed to himself as a stranger from another, unknown world, where +neither death nor fear was known. + +And suddenly this harsh, wild, stupefying change. He can no longer go +where he pleases, but he is led where others please. He can no longer +choose the place he likes, but he is placed in a stone cage, and locked +up like a thing. He can no longer choose freely, like all people, +between life and death, but he will surely and inevitably be put to +death. The incarnation of will-power, life and strength an instant +before, he has now become a wretched image of the most pitiful weakness +in the world. He has been transformed into an animal waiting to be +slaughtered, a deaf-mute object which may be taken from place to place, +burnt and broken. It matters not what he might say, nobody would listen +to his words, and if he endeavored to shout, they would stop his mouth +with a rag. Whether he can walk alone or not, they will take him away +and hang him. And if he should offer resistance, struggle or lie down +on the ground—they will overpower him, lift him, bind him and carry +him, bound, to the gallows. And the fact that this machine-like work +will be performed over him by human beings like himself, lent to them a +new, extraordinary and ominous aspect—they seemed to him like ghosts +that came to him for this one purpose, or like automatic puppets on +springs. They would seize him, take him, carry him, hang him, pull him +by the feet. They would cut the rope, take him down, carry him off and +bury him. + +From the first day of his imprisonment the people and life seemed to +him to have turned into an incomprehensibly terrible world of phantoms +and automatic puppets. Almost maddened with fear, he attempted to +picture to himself that human beings had tongues and that they could +speak, but he could not—they seemed to him to be mute. He tried to +recall their speech, the meaning of the words that people used in their +relations with one another—but he could not. Their mouths seemed to +open, some sounds were heard; then they moved their feet and +disappeared. And nothing more. + +Thus would a man feel if he were at night alone in his house and +suddenly all objects were to come to life, start to move and overpower +him. And suddenly they would all begin to judge him: the cupboard, the +chair, the writing-table and the divan. He would cry and toss about, +entreating, calling for help, while they would speak among themselves +in their own language, and then would lead him to the scaffold,—they, +the cupboard, the chair, the writing-table and the divan. And the other +objects would look on. + +To Vasily Kashirin, who was condemned to death by hanging, everything +now seemed like children’s playthings: his cell, the door with the +peephole, the strokes of the wound-up clock, the carefully molded +fortress, and especially that mechanical puppet with the gun who +stamped his feet in the corridor, and the others who, frightening him, +peeped into his cell through the little window and handed him the food +in silence. And that which he was experiencing was not the fear of +death; death was now rather welcome to him. Death with all its eternal +mysteriousness and incomprehensibility was more acceptable to his +reason than this strangely and fantastically changed world. What is +more, death seemed to have been destroyed completely in this insane +world of phantoms and puppets, having lost its great and enigmatic +significance, becoming something mechanical and only for that reason +terrible. He would be seized, taken, led, hanged, pulled by the feet, +the rope would be cut, he would be taken down, carried off and buried. + +And the man would have disappeared from the world. + +At the trial the nearness of his comrades brought Kashirin to himself. +For an instant he imagined he saw real people; they were sitting and +trying him, speaking like human beings, listening, apparently +understanding him. But as he mentally rehearsed the meeting with his +mother he clearly felt with the terror of a man who is beginning to +lose his reason and who realizes it, that this old woman in the black +little kerchief was only an artificial, mechanical puppet, of the kind +that can say “pa-pa,” “ma-ma,” but somewhat better constructed. He +tried to speak to her, while thinking at the same time with a shudder: + +“O Lord! That is a puppet. A mother doll. And there is a +soldier-puppet, and there, at home, is a father-puppet, and this is the +puppet of Vasily Kashirin.” + +It seemed to him that in another moment he would hear somewhere the +creaking of the mechanism, the screeching of unoiled wheels. When his +mother began to cry, something human again flashed for an instant, but +at the very first words it disappeared again, and it was interesting +and terrible to see that water was flowing from the eyes of the doll. + +Then, in his cell, when the terror had become unbearable, Vasily +Kashirin attempted to pray. Of all that had surrounded his childhood +days in his father’s house under the guise of religion only a +repulsive, bitter and irritating sediment remained; but faith there was +none. But once, perhaps in his earliest childhood, he had heard a few +words which had filled him with palpitating emotion and which remained +during all his life enwrapped with tender poetry. These words were: + +“The joy of all the afflicted...” + +It had happened, during painful periods in his life, that he whispered +to himself, not in prayer, without being definitely conscious of it, +these words: “The joy of all the afflicted”—and suddenly he would feel +relieved and a desire would come over him to go to some dear friend and +question gently: + +“Our life—is this life? Eh, my dearest, is this life?” + +And then suddenly it would appear laughable to him and he would feel +like mussing up his hair, putting forth his knee and thrusting out his +chest as though to receive heavy blows; saying: “Here, strike!” + +He did not tell anybody, not even his nearest comrades, about his “joy +of all the afflicted” and it was as though he himself did not know +about it,—so deeply was it hidden in his soul. He recalled it but +rarely and cautiously. + +Now when the terror of the insoluble mystery, which appeared so plainly +before him, enveloped him completely, even as the water in high-flood +covers the willow twigs on the shore,—a desire came upon him to pray. +He felt like kneeling, but he was ashamed of the soldier and, folding +his arms on his chest, he whispered softly: + +“The joy of all the afflicted!” + +And he repeated tenderly, in anguish: + +“Joy of all the afflicted, come to me, help Vaska Kashirin.” + +“Long ago, while he was yet in his first term at the university and +used to go off on a spree sometimes, before he had made the +acquaintance of Werner and before he had entered the organization, he +used then to call himself half-boastingly, half-pityingly, “Vaska +Kashirin,”—and now for some reason or other he suddenly felt like +calling himself by the same name again. But the words had a dead and +toneless sound. + +“The joy of all the afflicted!” + +Something stirred. It was as though some one’s calm and mournful image +had flashed up in the distance and died out quietly, without +illuminating the deathly gloom. The wound-up clock in the steeple +struck. The soldier in the corridor made a noise with his gun or with +his saber and he yawned, slowly, at intervals. + +“Joy of all the afflicted! You are silent! Will you not say anything to +Vaska Kashirin?” + +He smiled patiently and waited. All was empty within his soul and about +him. And the calm, mournful image did not reappear. He recalled, +painfully and unnecessarily, wax candles burning; the priest in his +vestments; the _ikon_ painted on the wall. He recalled his father, +bending and stretching himself, praying and bowing to the ground, while +looking sidewise to see whether Vaska was praying, or whether he was +planning some mischief. And a feeling of still greater terror came over +Vasily than before the prayer. + +Everything now disappeared. + +Madness came crawling painfully. His consciousness was dying out like +an extinguishing bonfire, growing icy like the corpse of a man who had +just died, whose heart is still warm but whose hands and feet had +already become stiffened with cold. His dying reason flared up as red +as blood again and said that he, Vasily Kashirin, might perhaps become +insane here, suffer pains for which there is no name, reach a degree of +anguish and suffering that had never been experienced by a single +living being; that he might beat his head against the wall, pick his +eyes out with his fingers, speak and shout whatever he pleased, that he +might plead with tears that he could endure it no longer,—and nothing +would happen. Nothing could happen. + +And nothing happened. His feet, which had a consciousness and life of +their own, continued to walk and to carry his trembling, moist body. +His hands, which had a consciousness of their own, endeavored in vain +to fasten the coat which was open at his chest and to warm his +trembling, moist body. His body quivered with cold. His eyes stared. +And this was calm itself embodied. + +But there was one more moment of wild terror. That was when people +entered his cell. He did not even imagine that this visit meant that it +was time to go to the execution; he simply saw the people and was +frightened like a child. + +“I will not do it! I will not do it!” he whispered inaudibly with his +livid lips and silently retreated to the depth of the cell, even as in +childhood he shrank when his father lifted his hand. + +“We must start.” + +The people were speaking, walking around him, handing him something. He +closed his eyes, he shook a little,—and began to dress himself slowly. +His consciousness must have returned to him, for he suddenly asked the +official for a cigarette. And the official generously opened his silver +cigarette-case upon which was a chased figure in the style of the +decadents. + + + +CHAPTER X THE WALLS ARE FALLING + +The unidentified man, who called himself Werner, was tired of life and +struggle. There was a time when he loved life very dearly, when he +enjoyed the theater, literature and social intercourse. Endowed with an +excellent memory and a firm will, he had mastered several European +languages and could easily pass for a German, a Frenchman or an +Englishman. He usually spoke German with a Bavarian accent, but when he +felt like it, he could speak like a born Berliner. He was fond of +dress, his manners were excellent and he alone, of all the members of +the organization, dared attend the balls given in high society, without +running the risk of being recognized as an outsider. + +But for a long time, altogether unnoticed by his comrades, there had +ripened in his soul a dark contempt for mankind; contempt mingled with +despair and painful, almost deadly fatigue. By nature rather a +mathematician than a poet, he had not known until now any inspiration, +any ecstasy and at times he felt like a madman, looking for the +squaring of a circle in pools of human blood. The enemy against whom he +struggled every day could not inspire him with respect. It was a dense +net of stupidity, treachery and falsehood, vile insults and base +deceptions. The last incident which seemed to have destroyed in him +forever the desire to live, was the murder of the provocateur which he +had committed by order of the organization. He had killed him in cold +blood, but when he saw that dead, deceitful, now calm, and after all +pitiful, human face, he suddenly ceased to respect himself and his +work. Not that he was seized with a feeling of repentance, but he +simply stopped appreciating himself. He became uninteresting to +himself, unimportant, a dull stranger. But being a man of strong, +unbroken will-power, he did not leave the organization. He remained +outwardly the same as before, only there was something cold, yet +painful in his eyes. He never spoke to anyone of this. + +He possessed another rare quality: just as there are people who have +never known headaches, so Werner had never known fear. When other +people were afraid, he looked upon them without censure but also +without any particular compassion, just as upon a rather contagious +illness from which, however, he himself had never suffered. He felt +sorry for his comrades, especially for Vasya Kashirin; but that was a +cold, almost official pity, which even some of the judges may have felt +at times. + +Werner understood that the execution was not merely death, that it was +something different,—but he resolved to face it calmly, as something +not to be considered; to live until the end as if nothing had happened +and as if nothing could happen. Only in this way could he express his +greatest contempt for capital punishment and preserve his last freedom +of the spirit which could not be torn away from him. At the trial—and +even his comrades who knew well his cold, haughty fearlessness would +perhaps not have believed this,—he thought neither of death nor of +life,—but concentrated his attention deeply and coolly upon a difficult +chess game which he was playing. A superior chess player, he had +started this game on the first day of his imprisonment and continued it +uninterruptedly. Even the sentence condemning him to death by hanging +did not remove a single figure from his imaginary chessboard. + +Even the knowledge that he would not be able to finish this game, did +not stop him; and the morning of the last day that he was to remain on +earth he started by correcting a not altogether successful move he had +made on the previous day. Clasping his lowered hands between his knees, +he sat for a long time motionless, then he rose and began to walk, +meditating. His walk was peculiar: he leaned the upper part of his body +slightly forward and stamped the ground with his heels firmly and +distinctly. His steps usually left deep, plain imprints even on dry +ground. He whistled softly, in one breath, a simple Italian melody, +which helped his meditation. + +But this time for some reason or other the thing did not work well. +With an unpleasant feeling that he had made some important, even grave +blunder, he went back several times and examined the game almost from +the beginning. He found no blunder, yet the feeling about a blunder +committed not only failed to leave him, but even grew ever more intense +and unpleasant. Suddenly an unexpected and offensive thought came into +his mind: Did the blunder perhaps consist in his playing chess simply +because he wanted to distract his attention from the execution and thus +shield himself against the fear of death which is apparently inevitable +in every person condemned to death? + +“No. What for?” he answered coldly and closed calmly his imaginary +chessboard. And with the same concentration with which he had played +chess, he tried to give himself an account of the horror and the +helplessness of his situation. As though he were going through a strict +examination, he looked over the cell, trying not to let anything +escape. He counted the hours that remained until the execution, made +for himself an approximate and quite exact picture of the execution +itself and shrugged his shoulders. + +“Well?” he said to some one half-questioningly. “Here it is. Where is +the fear?” + +Indeed there was no fear. Not only was it not there, but something +entirely different, the reverse of fear, developed—a sensation of +confused, but enormous and savage joy. And the error, which he had not +yet discovered, no longer called forth in him vexation or +irritation,—it seemed to speak loudly of something good and unexpected, +as though he had believed a dear friend of his to be dead, and that +friend turned out to be alive, safe and sound and laughing. + +Werner again shrugged his shoulders and felt his pulse,—his heart was +beating faster than usual, but soundly and evenly, with a specially +ringing throb. He looked about once more, attentively, like a novice +for the first time in prison,—examined the walls, the bolts, the chair +which was screwed to the floor, and thought: + +“Why do I feel so easy, so joyous and free? Yes, so free? I think of +the execution to-morrow—and I feel as though it is not there. I look at +the walls—and I feel as though they are not here, either. And I feel so +free, as though I were not in prison, but had just come out of some +prison where I had spent all my life. What does this mean?” + +His hands began to tremble,—something Werner had not experienced +before. His thoughts fluttered ever more furiously. It was as if +tongues of fire had flashed up in his mind, and the fire wanted to +burst forth and illumine the distance which was still dark as night. +Now the light pierced through and the widely illuminated distance began +to shine. + +The fatigue that had tormented Werner during the last two years had +disappeared; the dead, cold, heavy serpent with its closed eyes and +mouth clinched in death, had fallen away from his breast. Before the +face of death, beautiful Youth came back to him physically. Indeed, it +was more than beautiful Youth. With that wonderful clarity of the +spirit which in rare moments comes over man and lifts him to the +loftiest peaks of meditation, Werner suddenly perceived both life and +death, and he was awed by the splendor of the unprecedented spectacle. +It seemed to him that he was walking along the highest mountain-ridge, +which was narrow like the blade of a knife, and on one side he saw +Life, on the other side—Death,—like two sparkling, deep, beautiful +seas, blending in one boundless, broad surface at the horizon. + +“What is this? What a divine spectacle!” he said slowly, rising +involuntarily and straightening himself, as if in the presence of a +supreme being. And destroying the walls, space and time with the +impetuosity of his all-penetrating look, he cast a wide glance +somewhere into the depth of the life he was to forsake. + +And life appeared to him in a new light. He did not strive, as before, +to clothe in words that which he had seen; nor were there such words in +the still poor, meager human language. That small, cynical and evil +feeling which had called forth in him a contempt for mankind and at +times even an aversion for the sight of a human face, had disappeared +completely. Thus, for a man who goes up in an airship, the filth and +litter of the narrow streets disappear and that which was ugly becomes +beautiful. + +Unconsciously Werner stepped over to the table and leaned his right +hand on it. Proud and commanding by nature, he had never before assumed +such a proud, free, commanding pose, had never turned his head and +never looked as he did now,—for he had never yet been as free and +dominant as he was here in the prison, with but a few hours from +execution and death. + +Now men seemed new to him,—they appeared amiable and charming to his +clarified vision. Soaring over time, he saw clearly how young mankind +was, that but yesterday it had been howling like a beast in the +forests; and that which had seemed to him terrible in human beings, +unpardonable and repulsive, suddenly became very dear to him,—like the +inability of a child to walk as grown people do, like a child’s +unconnected lisping, flashing with sparks of genius; like a child’s +comical blunders, errors and painful bruises. + +“My dear people!” Werner suddenly smiled and at once lost all that was +imposing in his pose; he again became a prisoner who finds his cell +narrow and uncomfortable under lock, and he was tired of the annoying, +searching eye staring at him through the peephole in the door. And, +strange to say, almost instantly he forgot all that he had seen a +little while before so clearly and distinctly; and, what is still +stranger, he did not even make an effort to recall it. He simply sat +down as comfortably as possible, without the usual stiffness of his +body, and surveyed the walls and the bars with a faint and gentle, +strange, un-Werner-like smile. Still another new thing happened to +Werner,—something that had never happened to him before: he suddenly +started to weep. + +“My dear comrades!” he whispered, crying bitterly. “My dear comrades!” + +By what mysterious ways did he change from the feeling of proud and +boundless freedom to this tender and passionate compassion? He did not +know, nor did he think of it. Did he pity his dear comrades, or did his +tears conceal something else, a still loftier and more passionate +feeling?—His suddenly revived and rejuvenated heart did not know this +either. He wept and whispered: + +“My dear comrades! My dear, dear comrades!” + +In this man, who was bitterly weeping and smiling through tears, no one +could have recognized the cold and haughty, weary, yet daring +Werner—neither the judges, nor the comrades, nor even he himself. + + + +CHAPTER XI ON THE WAY TO THE SCAFFOLD + +Before placing the condemned people in coaches, all five were brought +together in a large cold room with a vaulted ceiling, which resembled +an office, where people worked no longer, or a deserted waiting-room. +They were now permitted to speak to one another. + +Only Tanya Kovalchuk availed herself at once of the permission. The +others firmly and silently shook each other’s hands, which were as cold +as ice and as hot as fire,—and silently, trying not to look at each +other, they crowded together in an awkward, absent-minded group. Now +that they were together, they felt somewhat ashamed of what each of +them had experienced when alone; and they were afraid to look, so as +not to notice or to show that new, peculiar, somewhat shameful +sensation that each of them felt or suspected the others of feeling. + +But after a short silence they glanced at each other, smiled and +immediately began to feel at ease and unrestrained, as before. No +change seemed to have occurred, and if it had occurred, it had come so +gently over all of them that it could not be discerned in any one +separately. All spoke and moved about strangely: abruptly, by jolts, +either too fast or too slowly. Sometimes they seemed to choke with +their words and repeated them a number of times; sometimes they did not +finish a phrase they had started, or thought they had finished—they did +not notice it. They all blinked their eyes and examined ordinary +objects curiously, not recognizing them, like people who had worn +eye-glasses and had suddenly taken them off; and all of them frequently +turned around abruptly, as though some one behind them was calling them +all the time and showing them something. But they did not notice this, +either. Musya’s and Tanya Kovalchuk’s cheeks and ears were burning; +Sergey was at first somewhat pale, but he soon recovered and looked as +he always did. + +Only Vasily attracted everybody’s attention. Even among them, he looked +strange and terrible. Werner became agitated and said to Musya in a low +voice, with tender anxiety: + +“What does this mean, Musyechka? Is it possible that he—— What? I must +go to him.” + +Vasily looked at Werner from the distance, as though not recognizing +him, and he lowered his eyes. + +“Vasya, what have you done with your hair? What is the matter with you? +Never mind, my dear, never mind, it will soon be over. We must keep up, +we must, we must.” + +Vasily was silent. But when it seemed that he would no longer say +anything, a dull, belated, terribly remote answer came—like an answer +from the grave: + +“I’m all right. I hold my own.” + +Then he repeated: + +“I hold my own.” + +Werner was delighted. + +“That’s the way, that’s the way. Good boy. That’s the way.” + +But his eyes met Vasily’s dark, wearied glance fixed upon him from the +distance and he thought with instant sorrow: “From where is he looking? +From where is he speaking?” and with profound tenderness, with which +people address a grave, he said: + +“Vasya, do you hear? I love you very much.” + +“So do I love you very much,” answered the tongue, moving with +difficulty. + +Suddenly Musya took Werner by the hand and with an expression of +surprise, she said like an actress on the stage, with measured +emphasis: + +“Werner, what is this? You said, ‘I love’? You never before said ‘I +love’ to anybody. And why are you all so—tender and serene? Why?” + +“Why?” + +And like an actor, also accentuating what he felt, Werner pressed +Musya’s hand firmly: + +“Yes, now I love very much. Don’t tell it to the others,—it isn’t +necessary, I feel somewhat ashamed, but I love deeply.” + +Their eyes met and flashed up brightly, and everything about them +seemed to have plunged in darkness. It is thus that in the flash of +lightning all other lights are instantly darkened and the heavy yellow +flame casts a shadow upon earth. + +“Yes,” said Musya, “yes, Werner.” + +“Yes,” he answered, “yes, Musya, yes.” + +They understood each other and something was firmly settled between +them at this moment. And his eyes glistening, Werner again became +agitated and quickly stepped over to Sergey. + +“Seryozha!” + +But Tanya Kovalchuk answered. Almost crying with maternal pride, she +tugged Sergey frantically by the sleeve. + +“Listen, Werner! I am crying here for him, I am wearing myself to +death, and he is occupying himself with gymnastics!” + +“According to the Müller system?” smiled Werner. + +Sergey knit his brow confusedly. + +“You needn’t laugh, Werner. I have convinced myself conclusively—” + +All began to laugh. Drawing strength and courage from one another, they +gradually regained their poise—became the same as they used to be. They +did not notice this, however, and thought that they had never changed +at all. Suddenly Werner interrupted their laughter and said to Sergey +very earnestly: + +“You are right, Seryozha. You are perfectly right.” + +“No, but you must understand,” said Golovin gladly. “Of course, we—” + +But at this point they were asked to start. And their jailers were so +kind as to permit them to ride in pairs, as they pleased. Altogether +the jailers were extremely kind; even too kind. It was as if they tried +partly to show themselves humane and partly to show that they were not +there at all, but that everything was being done as by machinery. But +they were all pale. + +“Musya, you go with him.” Werner pointed at Vasily, who stood +motionless. + +“I understand,” Musya nodded. “And you?” + +“I? Tanya will go with Sergey, you go with Vasya.... I will go alone. +That doesn’t matter, I can do it, you know.” + +When they went out in the yard, the moist, soft darkness rushed warmly +and strongly against their faces, their eyes, taking their breath away, +then suddenly it penetrated their bodies tenderly and refreshingly. It +was hard to believe that this wonderful effect was produced simply by +the spring wind, the warm, moist wind. And the really wonderful spring +night was filled with the odor of melting snow, and through the +boundless space the noise of drops resounded. Hastily and frequently, +as though trying to overtake one another, little drops were falling, +striking in unison a ringing tune. Suddenly one of them would strike +out of tune and all was mingled in a merry splash in hasty confusion. +Then a large, heavy drop would strike firmly and again the fast, spring +melody resounded distinctly. And over the city, above the roofs of the +fortress, hung a pale redness in the sky reflected by the electric +lights. + +“U-ach!” Sergey Golovin heaved a deep sigh and held his breath, as +though he regretted to exhale from his lungs the fine, fresh air. + +“How long have you had such weather?” inquired Werner. “It’s real +spring.” + +“It’s only the second day,” was the polite answer. “Before that we had +mostly frosty weather.” + +The dark carriages rolled over noiselessly one after another, took them +in by twos, started off into the darkness—there where the lantern was +shaking at the gate. The convoys like gray silhouettes surrounded each +carriage; the horseshoes struck noisily against the ground, or plashed +upon the melting snow. + +When Werner bent down, about to climb into the carriage, the gendarme +whispered to him: + +“There is somebody else going along with you.” + +Werner was surprised. + +“Where? Where is he going? Oh, yes! Another one? Who is he?” + +The gendarme was silent. Indeed, in a dark corner a small, motionless +but living figure pressed close to the side of the carriage. By the +reflection of the lantern Werner noticed the flash of an open eye. +Seating himself, Werner pushed his foot against the other man’s knee. + +“Excuse me, comrade.” + +The man made no reply. It was only when the carriage started, that he +suddenly asked in broken Russian, speaking with difficulty: + +“Who are you?” + +“I am Werner, condemned to hanging for the attempt upon N—. And you?” + +“I am Yanson. They must not hang me.” + +They were riding thus in order to appear two hours later face to face +before the inexplicable great mystery, in order to pass from Life to +Death—and they were introducing each other. Life and Death moved +simultaneously, and until the very end Life remained life, to the most +ridiculous and insipid trifles. + +“What have you done, Yanson?” + +“I killed my master with a knife. I stole money.” + +It seemed from the tone of his voice that Yanson was falling asleep. +Werner found his flabby hand in the darkness and pressed it. Yanson +withdrew it drowsily. + +“Are you afraid?” asked Werner. + +“I don’t want to be hanged.” + +They became silent. Werner again found the Esthonian’s hand and pressed +it firmly between his dry, burning palms. Yanson’s hand lay motionless, +like a board, but he made no longer any effort to withdraw it. + +It was close and suffocating in the carriage. The air was filled with +the smell of soldiers’ clothes, mustiness, and the leather of wet +boots. The young gendarme who sat opposite Werner breathed warmly upon +him, and in his breath there was the odor of onions and cheap tobacco. +But some brisk, fresh air came in through certain clefts, and because +of this, spring was felt even more intensely in this small, stifling, +moving box, than outside. The carriage kept turning now to the right, +now to the left, now it seemed to turn back. At times it seemed as +though they had been turning around on one and the same spot for hours +for some reason or other. At first a bluish electric light penetrated +through the lowered, heavy window shades; then suddenly, after a +certain turn it grew dark, and only by this could they guess that they +had turned into deserted streets in the outskirts of the city and that +they were nearing the S. railroad station. Sometimes during sharp +turns, Werner’s live, bent knee would strike against the live, bent +knee of the gendarme, and it was hard to believe that the execution was +approaching. + +“Where are we going?” Yanson asked suddenly. He was somewhat dizzy from +the continuous turning of the dark box and he felt slightly sick at his +stomach. + +Werner answered and pressed the Esthonian’s hand more firmly. He felt +like saying something especially kind and caressing to this little, +sleepy man, and he already loved him as he had never loved anyone in +his life. + +“You don’t seem to sit comfortably, my dear man. Move over here, to +me.” + +Yanson was silent for awhile, then he replied: + +“Well, thank you. I’m sitting all right. Are they going to hang you +too?” + +“Yes,” answered Werner, almost laughing with unexpected jollity, and he +waved his hand easily and freely, as though he were speaking of some +absurd and trifling joke which kind but terribly comical people wanted +to play on him. + +“Have you a wife?” asked Yanson. + +“No. I have no wife. I am single.” + +“I am also alone. Alone,” said Yanson. + +Werner’s head also began to feel dizzy. And at times it seemed that +they were going to some festival; strange to say, almost all those who +went to the scaffold experienced the same sensation and mingled with +sorrow and fear there was a vague joy as they anticipated the +extraordinary thing that was soon to befall them. Reality was +intoxicated with madness and Death, united with Life, brought forth +apparitions. It seemed very possible that flags were waving over the +houses. + +“We have arrived!” said Werner gayly when the carriage stopped, and he +jumped out easily. But with Yanson it was a rather slow affair: +silently and very drowsily he resisted and would not come out. He +seized the knob. The gendarme opened the weak fingers and pulled his +hand away. Then Yanson seized the corner of the carriage, the door, the +high wheel, but immediately let it go upon the slightest effort on the +part of the gendarme. He did not exactly seize these things; he rather +cleaved to each object sleepily and silently, and was torn away easily, +without any effort. Finally he got up. + +There were no flags. The railroad station was dark, deserted and +lifeless; the passenger trains were not running any longer, and the +train which was silently waiting for these passengers on the way needed +no bright light, no commotion. Suddenly Werner began to feel weary. It +was not fear, nor anguish, but a feeling of enormous, painful, +tormenting weariness which makes one feel like going off somewhere, +lying down and closing one’s eyes very tightly. Werner stretched +himself and yawned slowly. Yanson also stretched himself and quickly +yawned several times. + +“I wish they’d be quicker about it,” said Werner wearily. Yanson was +silent, shrinking together. + +When the condemned moved along the deserted platform which was +surrounded by soldiers, to the dimly lighted cars, Werner found himself +near Sergey Golovin; Sergey, pointing with his hand somewhere aside, +began to say something, but only the word “lantern” was heard +distinctly, and the rest was drowned in slow and weary yawning. + +“What did you say?” asked Werner, also yawning. + +“The lantern. The lamp in the lantern is smoking,” said Sergey. Werner +looked around. Indeed, the lamp in the lantern was smoking very much, +and the glass had already turned black on top. + +“Yes, it is smoking.” + +Suddenly he thought: “What have I to do with the smoking of the lamp, +since——” + +Sergey apparently thought the same, as he glanced quickly at Werner and +turned away. But both stopped yawning. + +They all went to the cars themselves, only Yanson had to be led by the +arms. At first he stamped his feet and his boots seemed to stick to the +boards of the platform. Then he bent his knees and fell into the arms +of the gendarmes, his feet dangled like those of a very intoxicated +man, and the tips of the boots scraped against the wood. It took a long +time until he was silently pushed through the door. + +Vasily Kashirin also moved himself, unconsciously imitating the +movements of his comrades—he did everything as they did. But on +boarding the platform of the car, he stumbled, and a gendarme took him +by the elbow to support him. Vasily shuddered and screamed shrilly, +drawing back his arm: + +“Ai!” + +“What is it, Vasya?” Werner rushed over to him. Vasily was silent, +trembling in every limb. The confused and even offended gendarme +explained: + +“I wanted to keep him from falling, and he—” + +“Come, Vasya, let me hold you,” said Werner, about to take him by the +arm. But Vasily drew back his arm again and cried more loudly than +before: + +“Ai!” + +“Vasya, it is I, Werner.” + +“I know. Don’t touch me. I’ll go myself.” + +And continuing to tremble he entered the car himself and seated himself +in a corner. Bending over to Musya, Werner asked her softly, pointing +with his eyes at Vasily: + +“How about him?” + +“Bad,” answered Musya, also in a soft voice. “He is dead already. +Werner, tell me, is there such a thing as death?” + +“I don’t know, Musya, but I think that there is no such thing,” replied +Werner seriously and thoughtfully. + +“That’s what I have thought. But he? I was tortured with him in the +carriage—it was like riding with a corpse.” + +“I don’t know, Musya. Perhaps there is such a thing as death for some +people. Meanwhile, perhaps, but later there will be no death. For me +death also existed before, but now it exists no longer.” + +Musya’s somewhat paled cheeks flushed as she asked: + +“It did exist, Werner? It did?” + +“It did. But not now any longer. Just the same as with you.” + +A noise was heard in the doorway of the car. Mishka Tsiganok entered, +stamping noisily with his heels, breathing loudly and spitting. He cast +a swift glance and stopped obdurately. + +“No room here, gendarme!” he shouted to the tired gendarme who looked +at him angrily. “You make it so that I am comfortable here, otherwise I +won’t go—hang me here on the lamp-post. What a carriage they gave me, +dogs! Is that a carriage? It’s the devil’s belly, not a carriage!” + +But suddenly he bent down his head, stretched out his neck and thus +went forward to the others. Out of the disheveled frame of hair and +beard his black eyes looked wildly and sharply with an almost insane +expression. + +“Ah, gentlemen!” he drawled out. “So that’s what it is. Hello, master!” + +He thrust his hand to Werner and sat down opposite him. And bending +closely over to him, he winked one eye and quickly passed his hand over +his throat. + +“You, too? What?” + +“Yes!” smiled Werner. + +“Are all of us to be hanged?” + +“All.” + +“Oho!” Tsiganok grinned, showing his teeth, and quickly felt everybody +with his eyes, stopping for an instant longer on Musya and Yanson. Then +he winked again to Werner. + +“The Minister?” + +“Yes, the Minister. And you?” + +“I am here for something else, master. People like me don’t deal with +ministers. I am a murderer, master, that’s what I am. An ordinary +murderer. Never mind, master, move away a little, I haven’t come into +your company of my own will. There will be room enough for all of us in +the other world.” + +He surveyed them all with one swift, suspicious, wild glance from under +his disheveled hair. But all looked at him silently and seriously, even +with apparent interest. He grinned, showing his teeth, and quickly +clapped Werner on the knee several times. + +“That’s the way, master! How does the song run? ‘Don’t rustle, O green +little mother forest....’” + +“Why do you call me ‘master,’ since we are all going—” + +“Correct,” Tsiganok agreed with satisfaction. “What kind of master are +you, if you are going to hang right beside me? There is a master for +you”; and he pointed with his finger at the silent gendarme. “Eh, that +fellow there is not worse than our kind”; he pointed with his eyes at +Vasily. “Master! Eh there, master! You’re afraid, aren’t you?” + +“No,” answered the heavy tongue. + +“Never mind that ‘No.’ Don’t be ashamed; there’s nothing to be ashamed +of. Only a dog wags his tail and snarls when he is taken to be hanged, +but you are a man. Who is that dope? He isn’t one of you, is he?” + +He darted his glance rapidly about, and hissing, kept spitting +continuously. Yanson, curled up into a motionless bundle, pressed +closely into the corner. The flaps of his outworn fur cap stirred, but +he maintained silence. Werner answered for him: + +“He killed his employer.” + +“O Lord!” wondered Tsiganok. “Why are such people allowed to kill?” + +For some time Tsiganok had been looking sideways at Musya; now turning +quickly, he stared at her sharply, straight into her face. + +“Young lady, young lady! What about you? Her cheeks are rosy and she is +laughing. Look, she is really laughing,” he said, clasping Werner’s +knee with his clutching, iron-like fingers. “Look, look!” + +Reddening, smiling confusedly, Musya also gazed straight into his sharp +and wildly searching eyes. + +The wheels rattled fast and noisily. The small cars kept hopping along +the narrow rails. Now at a curve or at a crossing the small engine +whistled shrilly and carefully—the engineer was afraid lest he might +run over somebody. It was strange to think that so much humane +painstaking care and exertion was being introduced into the business of +hanging people; that the most insane deed on earth was being committed +with such an air of simplicity and reasonableness. The cars were +running, and human beings sat in them as people always do, and they +rode as people usually ride; and then there would be a halt, as usual. + +“The train will stop for five minutes.” + +And there death would be waiting—eternity—the great mystery. + + + +CHAPTER XII THEY ARE HANGED + +The little cars ran on carefully. + +Sergey Golovin at one time had lived for several years with his +relatives at their country-house, along this very road. He had traveled +upon it by day as well as by night, and he knew it well. He closed his +eyes, and thought that he might now simply be returning home—that he +had stayed out late in the city with acquaintances, and was now coming +back on the last train. + +“We will soon he there,” he said, opening his eyes and looking out of +the grated, mute window. + +Nobody stirred, nobody answered; only Tsiganok spat quickly several +times and his eyes ran over the car, as though feeling the windows, the +doors, the soldiers. + +“It’s cold,” said Vasily Kashirin, his lips closed tightly, as though +really frozen; and his words sounded strangely. + +Tanya Kovalchuk began to bustle about. + +“Here’s a handkerchief. Tie it about your neck. It’s a very warm one.” + +“Around the neck?” Sergey asked suddenly, startled by his own question. +But as the same thing occurred to all of them, no one seemed to hear +him. It was as if nothing had been said, or as if they had all said the +same thing at the same time. + +“Never mind, Vasya, tie it about your neck. It will be warmer,” Werner +advised him. Then he turned to Yanson and asked gently: + +“And you, friend, are you cold?” + +“Werner, perhaps he wants to smoke. Comrade, perhaps you would like to +smoke?” asked Musya. “We have something to smoke.” + +“I do.” + +“Give him a cigarette, Seryozha,” said Werner delightedly. But Sergey +was already getting out a cigarette. All looked on with friendliness, +watching how Yanson’s fingers took the cigarette, how the match flared, +and then how the blue smoke issued from Yanson’s mouth. + +“Thanks,” said Yanson; “it’s good.” + +“How strange!” said Sergey. + +“What is strange?” Werner turned around. “What is strange?” + +“I mean—the cigarette.” + +Yanson held a cigarette, an ordinary cigarette, in his ordinary live +hands, and, pale-faced, looked at it with surprise, even with terror. +And all fixed their eyes upon the little tube, from the end of which +smoke was issuing, like a bluish ribbon, wafted aside by the breathing, +with the ashes, gathering, turning black. The light went out. + +“The light’s out,” said Tanya. + +“Yes, the light’s out.” + +“Let it go,” said Werner, frowning, looking uneasily at Yanson, whose +hand, holding the cigarette, was hanging loosely, as if dead. Suddenly +Tsiganok turned quickly, bent over to Werner, close to him, face to +face, and rolling the whites of his eyes, like a horse, whispered: + +“Master, how about the convoys? Suppose we—eh? Shall we try?” + +“No, don’t do it,” Werner replied, also in a whisper. “We shall drink +it to the bitter end.” + +“Why not? It’s livelier in a fight! Eh? I strike him, he strikes me, +and you don’t even know how the thing is done. It’s just as if you +don’t die at all.” + +“No, you shouldn’t do it,” said Werner, and turned to Yanson. “Why +don’t you smoke, friend?” + +Suddenly Yanson’s wizened face became wofully wrinkled, as if somebody +had pulled strings which set all the wrinkles in motion. And, as in a +dream, he began to whimper, without tears, in a dry, strained voice: + +“I don’t want to smoke. Aha! aha! aha! Why should I be hanged? Aha! +aha! aha!” + +They began to bustle about him. Tanya Kovalchuk, weeping freely, petted +him on the arm, and adjusted the drooping earlaps of his worn fur cap. + +“My dear, do not cry! My own! my dear! Poor, unfortunate little +fellow!” + +Musya looked aside. Tsiganok caught her glance and grinned, showing his +teeth. + +“What a queer fellow! He drinks tea, and yet feels cold,” he said, with +an abrupt laugh. But suddenly his own face became bluish-black, like +cast-iron, and his large yellow teeth flashed. + +Suddenly the little cars trembled and slackened their speed. All, +except Yanson and Kashirin, rose and sat down again quickly. + +“Here is the station,” said Sergey. + +It seemed to them as if all the air had been suddenly pumped out of the +car, it became so difficult to breathe. The heart grew larger, making +the chest almost burst, beating in the throat, tossing about +madly—shouting in horror with its blood-filled voice. And the eyes +looked upon the quivering floor, and the ears heard how the wheels were +turning ever more slowly—the wheels slipped and turned again, and then +suddenly—they stopped. + +The train had halted. + +Then a dream set in. It was not terrible, rather fantastic, unfamiliar +to the memory, strange. The dreamer himself seemed to remain aside, +only his bodiless apparition moved about, spoke soundlessly, walked +noiselessly, suffered without suffering. As in a dream, they walked out +of the car, formed into parties of two, inhaled the peculiarly fresh +spring air of the forest. As in a dream, Yanson resisted bluntly, +powerlessly, and was dragged out of the car silently. + +They descended the steps of the station. + +“Are we to walk?” asked some one almost cheerily. + +“It isn’t far now,” answered another, also cheerily. + +Then they walked in a large, black, silent crowd amid the forest, along +a rough, wet and soft spring road. From the forest, from the snow, a +fresh, strong breath of air was wafted. The feet slipped, sometimes +sinking into the snow, and involuntarily the hands of the comrades +clung to each other. And the convoys, breathing with difficulty, walked +over the untouched snow on each side of the road. Some one said in an +angry voice: + +“Why didn’t they clear the road? Did they want us to turn somersaults +in the snow?” + +Some one else apologized guiltily. + +“We cleaned it, your Honor. But it is thawing and it can’t be helped.” + +Consciousness of what they were doing returned to the prisoners, but +not completely,—in fragments, in strange parts. Now, suddenly, their +minds practically admitted: + +“It is indeed impossible to clear the road.” + +Then again everything died out, and only their sense of smell remained: +the unbearably fresh smell of the forest and of the melting snow. And +everything became unusually clear to the consciousness: the forest, the +night, the road and the fact that soon they would be hanged. Their +conversation, restrained to whispers, flashed in fragments. + +“It is almost four o’clock.” + +“I said we started too early.” + +“The sun dawns at five.” + +“Of course, at five. We should have—” + +They stopped in a meadow, in the darkness. A little distance away, +beyond the bare trees, two small lanterns moved silently. There were +the gallows. + +“I lost one of my rubbers,” said Sergey Golovin. + +“Really?” asked Werner, not understanding what he said. + +“I lost a rubber. It’s cold.” + +“Where’s Vasily?” + +“I don’t know. There he is.” + +Vasily stood, gloomy, motionless. + +“And where is Musya?” + +“Here I am. Is that you, Werner?” + +They began to look about, avoiding the direction of the gallows, where +the lanterns continued to move about silently with terrible +suggestiveness. On the left, the bare forest seemed to be growing +thinner, and something large and white and flat was visible. A damp +wind issued from it. + +“The sea,” said Sergey Golovin, inhaling the air with nose and mouth. +“The sea is there!” + +Musya answered sonorously: + +“My love which is as broad as the sea!” + +“What is that, Musya?” + +“The banks of life cannot hold my love, which is as broad as the sea.” + +“My love which is as broad as the sea,” echoed Sergey, thoughtfully, +carried away by the sound of her voice and by her words. + +“My love which is as broad as the sea,” repeated Werner, and suddenly +he spoke wonderingly, cheerfully: + +“Musya, how young you are!” + +Suddenly Tsiganok whispered warmly, out of breath, right into Werner’s +ear: + +“Master! master! There’s the forest! My God! what’s that? There—where +the lanterns are—are those the gallows? What does it mean?” + +Werner looked at him. Tsiganok was writhing in agony before his death. + +“We must bid each other good-by,” said Tanya Kovalchuk. + +“Wait, they have yet to read the sentence,” answered Werner. “Where is +Yanson?” + +Yanson was lying on the snow, and about him people were busying +themselves. There was a smell of ammonia in the air. + +“Well, what is it, doctor? Will you be through soon?” some one asked +impatiently. + +“It’s nothing. He has simply fainted. Rub his ears with snow! He is +coming to himself already! You may read the sentence!” + +The light of the dark lantern flashed upon the paper and on the white, +gloveless hands holding it. Both the paper and the hands quivered +slightly, and the voice also quivered: + +“Gentlemen, perhaps it is not necessary to read the sentence to you. +You know it already. What do you say?” + +“Don’t read it,” Werner answered for them all, and the little lantern +was soon extinguished. + +The services of the priest were also declined by them all. Tsiganok +said: + +“Stop your fooling, father—you will forgive me, but they will hang me. +Go to—where you came from.” + +And the dark, broad silhouette of the priest moved back silently and +quickly and disappeared. Day was breaking: the snow turned whiter, the +figures of the people became more distinct, and the forest—thinner, +more melancholy. + +“Gentlemen, you must go in pairs. Take your places in pairs as you +wish, but I ask you to hurry up.” + +Werner pointed to Yanson, who was now standing, supported by two +gendarmes. + +“I will go with him. And you, Seryozha, take Vasily. Go ahead.” + +“Very well.” + +“You and I go together, Musechka, shall we not?” asked Tanya Kovalchuk. +“Come, let us kiss each other good-by.” + +They kissed one another quickly. Tsiganok kissed firmly, so that they +felt his teeth; Yanson softly, drowsily, with his mouth half open—and +it seemed that he did not understand what he was doing. + +When Sergey Golovin and Kashirin had gone a few steps, Kashirin +suddenly stopped and said loudly and distinctly: + +“Good-by, comrades.” + +“Good-by, comrade,” they shouted in answer. + +They went off. It grew quiet. The lanterns beyond the trees became +motionless. They awaited an outcry, a voice, some kind of noise—but it +was just as quiet there as it was among them—and the yellow lanterns +were motionless. + +“Oh, my God!” some one cried hoarsely and wildly. They looked about. It +was Tsiganok, writhing in agony at the thought of death. “They are +hanging!” + +They turned away from him, and again it became quiet. Tsiganok was +writhing, catching at the air with his hands. + +“How is that, gentlemen? Am I to go alone? It’s livelier to die +together. Gentlemen, what does it mean?” + +He seized Werner by the hand, his fingers clutching and then relaxing. + +“Dear master, at least you come with me? Eh? Do me the favor? Don’t +refuse.” + +Werner answered painfully: + +“I can’t, my dear fellow. I am going with him.” + +“Oh, my God! Must I go alone, then? My God! How is it to be?” + +Musya stepped forward and said softly: + +“You may go with me.” + +Tsiganok stepped back and rolled the whites of his eyes wildly. + +“With you!” + +“Yes.” + +“Just think of her! What a little girl! And you’re not afraid? If you +are, I would rather go alone!” + +“No, I am not afraid.” + +Tsiganok grinned. + +“Just think of her! But do you know that I am a murderer? Don’t you +despise me? You had better not do it. I shan’t be angry at you.” + +Musya was silent, and in the faint light of dawn her face was pale and +enigmatic. Then suddenly she walked over to Tsiganok quickly, and, +throwing her arms about his neck, kissed him firmly upon his lips. He +took her by the shoulders with his fingers, held her away from himself, +then shook her, and, with loud smacks, kissed her on the lips, on the +nose, on the eyes. + +“Come!” + +Suddenly the soldier standing nearest them staggered forward, and +opening his hands, let his gun drop. He did not stoop down to regain +it, but stood for an instant motionless, turned abruptly and, like a +blind man, walked toward the forest over the untouched snow. + +“Where are you going?” called out another soldier in fright. “Halt!” + +But the man continued walking through the deep snow silently and with +difficulty. Then he must have stumbled over something, for he waved his +arms and fell face downward. And there he remained lying on the snow. + +“Pick up the gun, you sour-faced gray-coat, or I’ll pick it up,” said +Tsiganok sternly to the other soldier. “You don’t know your business!” + +The little lanterns began to move about busily again. Now it was the +turn of Werner and Yanson. + +“Good-by, master!” called Tsiganok loudly. “We’ll meet each other in +the other world, you’ll see! Don’t turn away from me. When you see me, +bring me some water to drink—it will be hot there for me!” + +“Good-by!” + +“I don’t want to be hanged!” said Yanson drowsily. + +Werner took him by the hand, and then the Esthonian walked a few steps +alone. But later they saw him stop and fall down in the snow. Soldiers +bent over him, lifted him up and carried him on, and he struggled +faintly in their arms. Why did he not cry? He must have forgotten even +that he had a voice. + +And again the little yellow lanterns became motionless. + +“And I, Musechka,” said Tanya Kovalchuk mournfully, “must I go alone? +We lived together, and now—” + +“Tanechka, dearest—” + +But Tsiganok took her part heatedly. Holding her by the hand, as though +fearing that some one would take her away from him, he said quickly, in +a business-like manner, to Tanya: + +“Ah, young lady, you can go alone! You are a pure soul—you can go alone +wherever you please! But I—I can’t! A murderer!... Understand? I can’t +go alone! Where are you going, you murderer? they will ask me. Why, I +even stole horses, by God! But with her it is just as if—just as if I +were with an infant, understand? Do you understand me?” + +“I do. Go. Come, let me kiss you once more, Musechka.” + +“Kiss! Kiss each other!” urged Tsiganok. “That’s a woman’s job! You +must bid each other a hearty good-by!” + +Musya and Tsiganok moved forward. Musya walked cautiously, slipping, +and by force of habit raising her skirts slightly. And the man led her +to death firmly, holding her arm carefully and feeling the ground with +his foot. + +The lights stopped moving. It was quiet and lonely around Tanya +Kovalchuk. The soldiers were silent, all gray in the soft, colorless +light of daybreak. + +“I am alone,” sighed Tanya Kovalchuk suddenly. “Seryozha is dead, +Werner is dead—and Vasya, too. I am alone! Soldiers! soldiers! I am +alone, alone—” + +The sun was rising over the sea. + +The bodies were placed in a box. Then they were taken away. With +stretched necks, with bulging eyes, with blue, swollen tongues, looking +like some unknown, terrible flowers between the lips, which were +covered with bloody foam—the bodies were hurried back along the same +road by which they had come—alive. And the spring snow was just as soft +and fresh; the spring air was just as strong and fragrant. And on the +snow lay Sergey’s black rubber-shoe, wet, trampled under foot. + +Thus did men greet the rising sun. + +THE END + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg’s The Seven who were Hanged, by Leonid Andreyev + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEVEN WHO WERE HANGED *** + +***** This file should be named 6722-0.txt or 6722-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/6/7/2/6722/ + +Produced by Eric Eldred, and David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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