by Maxim Gorky
Pavel stopped for a second and repeated, quieter and stronger:
“It will happen!”
The judges were exchanging whispers, pulling strange faces, and all without taking their greedy eyes off of Pavel, and the mother felt that they were soiling his supple, strong body with their looks, envying his health, power and freshness. The defendants listened attentively to their comrade’s speech, their faces turned pale and their eyes sparkled joyously. The mother gulped her son’s words down, and they engraved themselves in orderly rows upon her memory. The little old man stopped Pavel several times, explaining something to him, and once even gave a sad smile; Pavel would hear him out in silence and start speaking again sternly, but calmly, making people listen to him, subordinating the will of the judges to his own. But finally the old man cried out, stretching an arm towards Pavel; in reply to him, somewhat mockingly, Pavel’s voice poured out:
“I’m finishing. I didn’t mean to offend you personally – on the contrary: attending this comedy that you call a trial unwillingly, I feel almost compassion for you. After all, you are people, and it’s always hurtful for us to see others, even if they are hostile to our aim, so shamefully humiliated by their service to force, who have lost to such a degree any consciousness of their human dignity…”
He sat down without a glance at the judges, while the mother, holding her breath, looked intently at the judges and waited.
Andrei, all radiant, clasped Pavel’s hand firmly, Samoilov, Mazin and everyone else stretched towards him animatedly, and smiling, a little embarrassed by his comrades’ impulses, he glanced in the direction where the mother was sitting and nodded his head to her, as though asking:
“All right?”
She answered him with a deep sigh of joy, completely bathed in a hot wave of love.
“There, the trial’s begun!” whispered Sizov. “He really told them, eh?”
She nodded her head in silence, pleased that her son had spoken so boldly, and perhaps even more pleased that he had finished. Anxiously beating in her head was the question:
“Well? What are you all going to do now?”
XXVI
What her son had said was nothing new for her – she knew these ideas – but here before the court she had sensed for the first time the strange, enthusing strength of his belief. She was amazed by Pavel’s calmness, and his speech collected in her breast in a star-like, radiant ball of firm certainty of his innocence and his victory. Now she expected the judges to dispute with him bitterly, to argue angrily, setting forth their own truth. But then Andrei stood up, swayed, glanced at the judges from under his brows and began speaking:
“Gentlemen defence counsels…”
“There is a court before you, not a defence!” the judge with the sick face remarked to him in a loud, angry voice. From the expression on Andrei’s face the mother could see that he wanted to play the fool; his moustache was trembling, and shining in his eyes was the sly feline gentleness that she knew. He raised a long arm to give his head a hard rub and sighed:
“Really?” he said, shaking his head. “‘In my view, you’re not judges, but only defence counsels…”
“I’d ask you to speak to the point in hand!” the little old man remarked drily.
“To the point? Very well! I’d made myself think you really were judges, independent, honest men…”
“The court has no need of your reference!”
“Has no need? Hm – well, I’ll continue all the same… You are men for whom there is no ‘ours’, no ‘yours’ – you are free men. Now here before you stand two sides, and one is complaining: ‘He’s robbed and completely victimized me!’ While the other replies: ‘I have the right to rob and victimize, because I have a gun’…”
“Do you have anything to say that’s to the point?” the little old man asked, raising his voice. His hand was trembling, and it was nice for the mother to see he was getting angry. But she did not like Andrei’s behaviour: it did not accord with her son’s speech, and she wanted a serious, strict argument.
The Ukrainian looked at the little old man in silence and then, rubbing his head, said seriously:
“To the point? But why ever should I speak to the point with you? My comrade has said what you needed to know. Others will tell you everything else when the time comes…”
The little old man half-rose and announced:
“I am denying you the right to speak! Grigory Samoilov!”
Pursing his lips tightly, the Ukrainian sank lazily onto the bench, and next to him Samoilov stood up, tossing his curls.
“The Procurator called my comrades savages, enemies of culture…”
“You must speak only about what concerns your case!”
“It does. There’s nothing that doesn’t concern honest men. And I’d request you not to interrupt me. I’m asking you: what is your culture?”
“We’re not here to have a debate with you! Get to the point!” said the little old man, baring his teeth.
Andrei’s behaviour had clearly changed the judges: it was as if his words had wiped something off of them, blotches had appeared on their grey faces, and there were cold, green sparks burning in their eyes. Pavel’s speech had irritated them, but had restrained their irritation with its power, which had unwittingly inspired respect, whereas the Ukrainian had torn away that restraint and had easily lain bare what was beneath it. They exchanged whispers with strange grimaces and had begun moving too quickly for themselves.
“You educate spies, you deprave women and girls, you put a man in the position of a thief and a murderer, you poison him with vodka: international slaughter, universal deceit, depravity and degeneration – that’s your culture! Yes, we are enemies of that culture!”
“Please!” shouted the little old man with his chin shaking. But Samoilov, all red and with flashing eyes, shouted too:
“But we respect and value that other culture which you have allowed to rot in prisons, have driven to madness…”
“Enough from you! Fyodor Mazin!”
Little Mazin rose like a needle suddenly poking up into the air and said in a breaking voice:
“I… I swear! I know it – you’ve condemned me.”
He choked, turned pale, and all that was left of his face were his eyes, and reaching out an arm he cried:
“I give you my word! Wherever you send me, I’ll escape, I’ll come back and I’ll work all the time, all my life. I give you my word!”
Sizov let out a loud croak and started fidgeting. And the public as a whole, giving in to a wave of excitement that was rising higher and higher, emitted a strange, muffled humming. Some woman was crying, someone had a choking cough. The gendarmes were examining the defendants in dull surprise and the public with malice. The judges were swaying, and the old man cried shrilly:
“Ivan Gusev!”
“I don’t want to speak!”
“Vasily Gusev!”
“Nor do I!”
“Fyodor Bukin!”
The somewhat albino lad, drained of colour, rose heavily and, shaking his head, said slowly:
“You should be ashamed! I’m a slow man, but even I can understand justice!” He lifted a hand above the level of his head and fell silent with his eyes half-closed, as though sizing something up in the distance.
“What’s the matter?” cried the old man in irritation and amazement, leaning back in his chair.
“To hell with you…”
Bukin sank morosely back onto the bench. There was something huge and important in his dark words, there was something sadly reproachful and naive. This was felt by all, and even the judges listened closely, as though wondering whether there might be an echo that would be clearer than those words. And on the benches for the public everything froze; only the quiet crying swayed in the air. Then, with a shrug of the shoulders, the Procurator grinned,
the Marshal of the Nobility cleared his throat noisily and whispers were gradually born once more, twisting excitedly through the courtroom.
Leaning towards Sizov, the mother asked:
“Are the judges going to speak?”
“It’s all over… they’re only going to announce the sentence…”
“Nothing more?”
“No…”
She did not believe him.
Samoilova was moving about uneasily on the bench, pushing the mother with her shoulder and elbow and saying quietly to her husband:
“How can that be? Is it really possible?”
“You can see it is!”
“What ever’s going to happen to him, to Grisha?”
“Lay off…”
Something displaced, violated and broken could be sensed in everyone, and people were blinking their dazzled eyes in bewilderment, as if something had lit up in front of them that was bright, unclear in outline and incomprehensible in meaning, but engaging in its power. And not understanding the great thing that had suddenly revealed itself, the people were hurriedly expending what was a new feeling for them on what was petty, obvious and comprehensible to them. The elder Bukin, unabashed, whispered loudly:
“Forgive me, why won’t they let them speak? The Procurator can say anything and as much as he likes…”
An official was standing by the benches and, waving his arms at the people, saying in a low voice:
“Quiet! Quiet…”
Samoilov leant back and boomed behind his wife’s back, tossing the words out jerkily:
“Of course, let’s say they’re guilty. But let them explain! What was it they were against? I want to understand! I have my own interest too…”
“Quiet!” exclaimed the official, wagging a finger at him.
Sizov nodded his head morosely.
But the mother was looking fixedly at the judges and could see they were becoming more and more excited, conversing with one another in indistinct voices. The sound of their talk, cold and slippery, was touching her face, and its touch prompted a trembling in her cheeks and a sickly, nasty sensation in her mouth. For some reason it seemed to the mother that they were all talking about the bodies of her son and his comrades, about the young men’s muscles and limbs, full of hot blood and vital strength. These bodies were igniting in them the malign envy of beggars, the sticky greed of the emaciated and sick. They were smacking their lips and feeling regret over these bodies, capable of working and enriching, enjoying and creating. Now the bodies were leaving the working cycle of life, rejecting it, taking away with them the opportunity for anyone to have power over them, to exploit their strength, to devour it. And that was why the young men aroused in the old judges the vengeful, miserable irritation of a weakened wild animal that can see fresh food, but no longer has the strength to seize it, has lost the capacity to sate itself with another’s strength and growls morbidly, howls mournfully, seeing that a source of satiety is getting away from it.
This idea, brutish and strange, took on a form all the more vivid, the more attentively the mother scrutinized the judges. They did not conceal, as it seemed to her, the excited greed and impotent embitterment of hungry creatures who were once able to devour a lot. For her, a woman and a mother, to whom her son’s body is always, and in any event, dearer than what is called the soul, for her it was terrible to see the way those dimmed eyes crept across his face, probed his chest, shoulders and arms, rubbed against his hot skin, as though seeking an opportunity to flare up, catch fire and warm the blood in the hardened veins and worn-out muscles of men who are half dead, but have now been partly brought back to life by injections of greed and envy of the young life they are to condemn and remove from themselves. It seemed to her that her son could feel those damp, unpleasantly itchy touches and was looking at her and shuddering.
Pavel was looking into his mother’s face with slightly tired eyes, calmly and affectionately. At times he would nod his head to her and smile.
“Freedom soon!” that smile said to her, and it was as if it were stroking the mother’s heart with its soft touches.
Suddenly the judges all stood up at once. The mother involuntarily rose to her feet as well.
“They’re off!” said Sizov.
“For the sentence?” asked the mother.
“Yes…”
Her tension suddenly disappeared, her body was embraced by the stifling torpor of tiredness, her brow began to tremble, and sweat stood out on her forehead. A heavy feeling of disenchantment and hurt surged into her heart and was quickly reborn as soul-destroying contempt for the judges and the court. Sensing pain in her brows, she ran the palm of her hand firmly across her forehead and looked around: the relatives of the defendants were going up to the rail, and the courtroom was filling with the hum of conversation. She too went up to Pavel and, squeezing his hand tightly, burst into tears, full of hurt and joy, becoming confused in the chaos of contradictory feelings. Pavel spoke affectionate words to her, while the Ukrainian joked and laughed.
All the women were crying, but more out of habit than grief. The grief that stuns with a sudden, blunt blow, that falls unexpected and unseen onto someone’s head, was absent; what there was was people’s sad consciousness of the need to part with their children, but that too was drowning, dissolving in the impressions provoked by the day. Fathers and mothers looked at their children with a troubled feeling, where their mistrust of youth and customary consciousness of their superiority to their children was merging strangely with another feeling, close to respect for them, and a sad, nagging thought about how they were now to live was blunted by the curiosity that was aroused by youth speaking boldly and fearlessly about the possibility of a different, good life. These feelings were constrained by an inability to express them; words were spent liberally, but the talk was about simple things, about linen and clothing, about the need to look after one’s health.
But Bukin’s brother, throwing up his arms, was affirming to the younger brother:
“Precisely – justice! And nothing else!”
The younger Bukin replied:
“Look after the starling…”
“It’ll be fine!….”
And Sizov was holding his nephew’s hand and saying slowly:
“So, Fyodor, you’re going, then…”
Fedya bent down and whispered something in his ear, smiling roguishly. The soldier on guard smiled too, but immediately pulled a stern face and let out a croak.
The mother talked to Pavel as the others did, about the same things, about clothing, about his health, but crowding in her breast were dozens of questions, about Sasha, about herself, about him. And lying beneath all of it and gradually growing was a sense of the abundance of her love for her son, an intense desire to please him, to be closer to his heart. The expectation of something fearful had died, leaving behind it only an unpleasant trembling when she recalled the judges and a dark thought about them somewhere to the side. She felt within herself the birth of a great, bright joy, but she did not understand it and was confused. Seeing that the Ukrainian was talking to everyone, and understanding that he needed affection more than Pavel, she began to talk to him:
“I didn’t like the trial!”
“But why, nenko?” the Ukrainian exclaimed, smiling gratefully. “There’s life in the old dog yet…”
“It’s not fearful, and neither is it clear to people who’s on the side of truth,” she said uncertainly.
“Oho! What ever do you want?” Andrei exclaimed. “Do they really dispute the truth here?…”
With a sigh and a smile she said:
“I thought it was fearful, you know…”
“The court is in session!”
Everyone rushed quickly to their places.
With one arm leaning on the table and hiding his face behind a document, the senior judge began readi
ng it in a feebly buzzing voice, like a bumblebee.
“He’s sentencing them!” said Sizov, listening intently.
It became quiet. Everyone stood up, gazing at the old man. Small, dry, upright, he had something in common with a stick being held by an invisible hand. The judges were standing too, the volost elder with his head bent onto his shoulder and gazing at the ceiling, the Mayor with his arms crossed over his chest, the Marshal of the Nobility occasionally stroking his beard. The judge with the sick face, his plump colleague and the Procurator were looking in the direction of the defendants. And from behind the judges, over their heads from the portrait looked the Tsar, in a red tunic, with an indifferent white face, and crawling across his face was some sort of insect.
“Deportation!” said Sizov with a sigh of relief. “Well, of course, thank the Lord! Hard labour, it was being said! It’s all right, mother! That’s all right!”
“I knew it, I did,” she answered in a tired voice.
“All the same! Now it’s for sure! Because who knows?” He turned to the condemned men, who were already being led away, and said loudly:
“Goodbye, Fyodor! And everyone! God help you!”
The mother nodded her head in silence to her son and to everyone else. She felt like bursting into tears, but was too ashamed.
XXVII
She left the court and was surprised that it was already night over the town, the lamps were on in the street and the stars were in the sky. Knots of people were crowding around the court, the snow was crunching in the frosty air, and there was the sound of young voices interrupting one another. A man wearing a grey hood looked into Sizov’s face and asked hurriedly:
