Collected Shorter Fiction, Volume 2

by Leo Tolstoy

  Stepan started to recite the Our Father, fitting the letters he knew to the sounds he knew. And suddenly the mystery of the combining of letters was opened to him, and he began to read. It was a tremendous joy to him. From that day he began reading, and the sense which emerged little by little from the painfully assembled words took on an even greater significance for him.

  His isolation no longer weighed upon Stepan, it was a cause of rejoicing to him. He was entirely preoccupied with his task, and was not at all pleased when, to make room for some newly admitted politicals, he was moved back into the communal cell.

  V

  Now it was often not Chuyev, but Stepan who read the Gospels aloud in the cell, and although some of the prisoners sang bawdy songs, others listened to his reading and to the conversations which took place about what he had read. Two men in particular always listened to him attentively and in silence: one was the executioner Makhorkin who was doing hard labour for murder; the other was Vasily, who had been caught stealing and was being held in the same prison, awaiting trial. Makhorkin had twice fulfilled his duties as executioner during his stay in the prison, on both occasions in other towns where no one could be found to carry out the sentences the judges had imposed. The peasants who had murdered Pyotr Nikolayevich Sventitsky had been tried by a military tribunal and two of them had been condemned to death by hanging.

  Makhorkin had been required to go to Penza to carry out his functions there. On previous occasions of this kind he had at once written to the governor – he was unusually good at reading and writing – explaining that he had been commanded to go to Penza to carry out his duties and requesting the provincial chief to grant him the appropriate daily subsistence allowance; but this time he declared, to the astonishment of the prison director, that he would not go, and that never again would he be carrying out the duty of executioner.

  ‘And have you forgotten the whip?’ shouted the warden.

  ‘The whip is the whip right enough, but killing’s against the law.’

  ‘So you’ve been picking up ideas from Pelageyushkin, have you? Quite the prison prophet he’s become. Well, just you wait.’

  VI

  Meanwhile Makhin, the grammar-school boy who had showed his friend how to forge the coupon, had left school and completed his course at the university Faculty of Law. Thanks to his success with women, including the former mistress of an elderly government minister who was a friend of his, he had while still quite a young man been made an examining magistrate. He was a dishonest man with considerable debts, a seducer of women and a gambler at cards, but he was a clever, quick-witted man with a retentive memory, and effective in his handling of legal cases.

  He was examining magistrate in the district where Stepan Pelageyushkin was being tried. He had already been surprised during the first examination by Stepan’s simple, accurate and level-headed replies to his questions. Makhin was almost unconsciously aware that this man standing before him shaven-headed and in shackles, who was brought here and guarded and would be taken away to be locked up again by two soldiers, this man was somehow perfectly free and existed on a moral level which he, Makhin, could not possibly attain. For this reason, as he examined the man he was obliged to keep on pulling himself together and urging himself on, so as not to get confused and to lose his way. He was struck by the manner in which Stepan spoke of the things he had done as of something which had happened long ago and which had been carried out not by him at all, but by another person.

  ‘And you didn’t feel sorry for them at all?’ asked Makhin.

  ‘No, I didn’t feel sorry. I didn’t understand at that time.’

  ‘Well, and how do you feel towards them now?’ Stepan smiled sadly.

  ‘Now, you could roast me alive, but I wouldn’t do such a thing again.’

  ‘And why is that?’

  ‘Because I’ve come to see that all men are brothers.’

  ‘All right, so I am your brother, am I?’

  ‘Of course you are.’

  ‘What, I am your brother, though I am condemning you to penal servitude?’

  ‘That’s only because you don’t understand.’

  ‘And what don’t I understand?’

  ‘You can’t understand, if you are passing judgement on me.’

  ‘Well, let us get on. So where did you go after that?…’

  Makhin was struck most of all by what he learned from the prison warden about Pelageyushkin’s influence on the executioner Makhorkin who, at the risk of corporal punishment, had refused to carry out his official duties.

  VII

  At an evening party at the house of the Yeropkins, where there were two marriageable daughters both of whom Makhin was courting, after the singing of romances (at which the highly musical Makhin distinguished himself as second singer and as accompanist), Makhin was giving a faithful, detailed account – his memory was excellent – and a quite impartial account, of the strange criminal who had brought about the conversion of the executioner. Makhin was able to remember and describe everything so well, precisely because he was always utterly impartial towards the people he had to deal with. He did not and could not enter into the spiritual state of other people, and for this reason he was extremely good at recalling everything that had happened to them and all that they had done or said.

  But Pelageyushkin had aroused his interest. He made no attempt to put himself in Stepan’s place but he could not help wondering ‘What is going on in his mind?’ and although he came to no conclusions he felt that this was something of interest, and so he was giving a thorough account of the whole case at this soirée: the executioner’s repudiation of his duties, the warden’s stories about Pelageyushkin’s strange behaviour, his reading of the Gospels, and the powerful influence he exerted on his fellow-prisoners.

  Makhin’s story intrigued everyone present, but it was of particular interest to the Yeropkins’ younger daughter Liza, who was eighteen years old, had just completed her studies at a young ladies’ academy, and was beginning to realize the darkness and narrowness of the thoroughly false environment in which she had been brought up – she was like a swimmer who had burst through the surface of the water and was eagerly gulping in the fresh air of life. She started to question Makhin about the details of the case and about how and why such a transformation had come upon Pelageyushkin, and Makhin told her what he had learned from Pelageyushkin about his most recent murder, and how the meekness and docility of this extraordinarily good-hearted woman with no fear of death, whom he had murdered, had vanquished him and opened his eyes, and how his reading of the Gospels had then completed the process.

  For a long time that night Liza Yeropkina could not get to sleep. For some months already a struggle had been going on within her between the life of fashionable society, in which her sister had been trying to involve her, and her attraction towards Makhin, which was mingled with a desire to reform him. And now it was this latter impulse which gained the upper hand. She had already heard something of the woman who had been murdered. Now, however, after that dreadful death and what Makhin had told her based on Pelageyushkin’s account of it, she knew the whole story of Mariya Semyonovna in detail and she was deeply moved by all that she had learned about her.

  Liza felt an overwhelming desire to be a woman of the sort that Mariya Semyonovna had been. She was rich and she was afraid Makhin might be courting her simply for her money. And so she decided that she would give away the property she owned, and she confided her idea to Makhin.

  Makhin was glad to have this opportunity of showing his disinterestedness, and he told Liza that he did not love her for her money, and this decision of hers, which seemed to him so magnanimous, moved him deeply. Meanwhile a struggle had begun between Liza and her mother (the estate had come to her from her father), who would not permit her to give her property away. Makhin gave Liza all the help he could. And the more he pursued this course of action, the more he began to understand this new world of spiritual aspirations which
had formerly seemed to him so strange and alien, and which he now saw in Liza.

  VIII

  In the communal cell everything had grown quiet. Stepan was lying in his place on the plank-bed, not yet asleep. Vasily went over to him, and tugging at his foot, gave him a wink as a sign that he should get up and come across to where he was standing. Stepan slipped down from the plank-bed and went up to Vasily.

  ‘Well now, brother,’ said Vasily, ‘I want you to help me, if you will.’

  ‘What sort of help do you need?’

  ‘I’m thinking of escaping.’

  And Vasily explained that he had made all the necessary preparations for an escape attempt.

  ‘Tomorrow I’m going to stir up some trouble with them’ – he pointed at the prisoners lying asleep. ‘They’ll complain about me to the orderlies. I’ll be transferred to the cells upstairs and once I’m there I know what to do. But I’ll be relying on you to give me a hand to get out of the mortuary.’

  ‘I can do that. But where will you go?’

  ‘I’ll go wherever I feel like going. I reckon there’s no lack of bad characters out there.’

  ‘That’s true, brother, but it’s not for us to judge them.’

  ‘What I mean is, I’m no murderer, am I? I’ve never done in a single soul, and what’s a bit of stealing? What’s so wrong about that? Aren’t they always robbing poor devils like you and me?’

  ‘That’s their affair. They’ll answer for it.’

  ‘So are we just meant to stand there and watch them get on with it? Like, I cleaned out a church once. What harm did that do anybody? What I’ve got in mind now isn’t to rob some measly little shop. I’m going to go for some big money, and then give it away to them as need it.’

  At that moment one of the prisoners sat up on the plank-bed and began listening to what they were saying. Stepan and Vasily went their separate ways.

  The next day Vasily did what he had planned to do. He began complaining about the bread, saying that it was not properly cooked, and he urged the other prisoners to call the warden in and lodge an official complaint. The warden arrived and shouted abuse at them, and on discovering that Vasily was the one behind the whole thing he gave orders that he should be put into solitary confinement in one of the cells on the floor above.

  That was exactly what Vasily needed.

  IX

  Vasily was thoroughly familiar with the upstairs cell into which they had put him. He knew how the floor was constructed and as soon as he got in there he set about taking it up. When he had managed to worm his way under the floorboards he prised apart the panels which formed the ceiling of the room below and jumped down, into the mortuary. That day there was only one dead body lying on the mortuary table. In the mortuary they kept the sacks used for making the prisoners’ palliasses. Vasily was aware of this and he was counting on it. The padlock on the door had been taken off and the hasp pushed inside. Vasily opened the door and went into the room at the end of the corridor, where a new latrine was being built. In the latrine there was a hole leading from the second floor down to the lowest one, the basement. Groping his way back to the door, Vasily went into the mortuary again, removed the shroud from the corpse, which felt icy cold (he touched it with his hand in taking the shroud off it), then took some sacks and tied them and the shroud together to form a rope, and lowered his rope down the latrine hole; then he made the rope fast round a cross-beam and climbed down it. The rope was not long enough to reach the floor. Just how much too short it was he did not know, but there was nothing for it, so he hung down as far as he could, then jumped.

  He hurt his legs, but he could still walk. In the basement there were two windows. They were big enough for him to crawl through, but they were fitted with iron gratings. He had to get one of them out, but what with? Vasily began to fumble about. On the floor of the basement there were some sections of timber. He found one which had a pointed end and began using it to lever out the bricks which held the grating in place. He worked away at it for a long time. The cocks had crowed for the second time, but the grating still held. At last one side of it came loose. Vasily inserted his piece of timber into the gap and pushed hard on it; the whole grating came away, but a brick fell out and crashed to the floor. The sentries might have heard. Vasily froze. All was quiet. He climbed up into the window aperture, and out. To make his escape he still had to get over the prison wall. In one corner of the yard there stood a lean-to shed. He would have to climb on to the roof of this shed, and from there on to the top of the wall. He would need to take a piece of the timber with him, otherwise he would not be able to get on to the roof. Vasily crawled back through the window. He crawled out once more with a length of timber and froze, listening to find out where the sentry was. As far as he could judge the sentry was walking along the far side of the square yard. Vasily approached the lean-to, placed the timber against it and started to climb up. The timber slipped, and fell to the ground. Vasily was in stockinged feet, with no shoes. He took off his socks so as to get a grip with his feet, put the timber in place once more, sprang on to it and managed to get his hand over the roof guttering. ‘O Lord, don’t let it come away, let it hold.’ He gripped the guttering, then got one knee on to the roof. The sentry was coming. Vasily lay flat and froze. The sentry did not notice anything and continued on his way. Vasily leapt to his feet. The iron roof clattered beneath his feet. One more step, a second, and there was the wall in front of him. He could reach out and touch it. One hand, then the other, then he stretched up, and he was on the top of the wall. If only he didn’t smash himself to bits now, jumping down. Vasily turned round, hung by both arms, stretched out as far as he could, and let go one hand, then the other. ‘Lord be praised!’ – he was on the ground. And the ground was soft. His legs were undamaged and he ran off.

  When he reached his house at the edge of the town Malanya opened the door to him, and he crawled under the warm patchwork quilt which was impregnated with the smell of sweat.

  X

  Pyotr Nikolayevich’s sturdy, attractive wife, ever placid, childless, plump, like a barren cow, watched from the window as the peasants murdered her husband and dragged his body away somewhere into the fields. The sensation of terror which Natalya Ivanovna (such was the name of Sventitsky’s widow) experienced at the sight of this slaughter was – as is always the case – so powerful that it stifled all her other emotions. However, when the crowd of peasants had gone out of sight behind the garden fence and the hubbub of their voices had died away, and the barefooted girl Malanya, who worked for them, came running in wide-eyed as if to announce some glad tidings, with the news that they had murdered Pyotr Nikolayevich and thrown his body into the ravine, Natalya Ivanovna’s initial feeling of terror began to be mingled with something different: a feeling of joy at her liberation from the despot, eyes hidden behind his tinted spectacles, who had kept her in slavery these past nineteen years. She was horrified at this feeling and did not even acknowledge it to herself, but tried all the more not to let anyone else know about it. When they washed his yellow, mutilated, hairy corpse and dressed it and placed it in the coffin she was overcome with horror, and she wept and sobbed. When the examining magistrate responsible for serious crimes came down and questioned her as a witness, she saw before her, right there in the investigator’s office, the two peasants now in fetters who had been identified as the principal culprits. One of them was quite an old man, with a long, wavy white beard and a calm, sternly handsome face; the other looked like a gypsy, a youngish man with shining dark eyes and curly, tousled hair. She testified that as far as she knew these were the very same men who had been the first to seize Pyotr Nikolayevich by the arms, and despite the fact that the gypsy-like peasant turned his flashing eyes under his contorted brow directly upon her and said reproachfully ‘It’s a sin, lady! Ah, we shall all have to die one day’ – in spite of that she felt no pity whatever for them. On the contrary, as the investigation went on there arose within her a feeling of hostili
ty and a desire to revenge herself on her husband’s murderers.

  But when a month later the case, which had been transferred to a military tribunal, ended with eight men being condemned to penal servitude and the two men – the white-bearded old man and the dark-skinned ‘gypsy lad’, as they called him – being sentenced to be hanged, she experienced a most disagreeable feeling. But this disagreeable feeling of doubt was now quickly dissipated under the influence of the solemn ritual of the courtroom. If the higher authorities considered this to be necessary, then it must all be for the best.

  The executions were to be carried out in the village. And returning from mass one Sunday in her new dress and new shoes, Malanya informed her mistress that they were putting up a gallows, that an executioner was expected to arrive from Moscow by Wednesday, and that the two men’s relatives were wailing without ceasing, so that you could hear them all over the village.

  Natalya Ivanovna stayed indoors so as not to see the gallows or the local people, and her only wish was that what must be done should soon be over. She thought solely of herself, and not at all about the condemned men and their families.

  XI

  On the Tuesday Natalya Ivanovna received a visit from the district superintendent, a friend of hers. Natalya Ivanovna entertained him with vodka and mushrooms she had pickled herself. The district superintendent drank his vodka and enjoyed some of the snacks, and then informed her that the executions would not be taking place tomorrow.

  ‘What? How is that?’

  ‘It’s an extraordinary story. They have been unable to supply an executioner. There was one in Moscow but he, so my son tells me, got to reading the Gospels, and now he says that he can’t kill anybody. He himself was condemned to hard labour for murder, but now all of a sudden – he can’t kill someone even if it’s legal. They told him he would be flogged. Flog me, he says, but I still can’t do it.’