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The Forged Coupon and Other Stories

by Leo Tolstoy

April, 1995  [Etext #243]

*Project Gutenberg's Etext of The Forged Coupon by Leo Tolstoy*
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THE FORGED COUPON

And Other Stories

BY
LEO TOLSTOY




CONTENTS


INTRODUCTION
THE FORGED COUPON
AFTER THE DANCE
ALYOSHA THE POT
MY DREAM
THERE ARE NO GUILTY PEOPLE
THE YOUNG TSAR




INTRODUCTION

IN an age of materialism like our own the phe-
nomenon of spiritual power is as significant and
inspiring as it is rare.  No longer associated with
the "divine right" of kings, it has survived the
downfall of feudal and theocratic systems as a
mystic personal emanation in place of a coercive
weapon of statecraft.

Freed from its ancient shackles of dogma and
despotism it eludes analysis.  We know not how
to gauge its effect on others, nor even upon our-
selves.  Like the wind, it permeates the atmos-
phere we breathe, and baffles while it stimulates
the mind with its intangible but compelling force.

This psychic power, which the dead weight of
materialism is impotent to suppress, is revealed
in the lives and writings of men of the most di-
verse creeds and nationalities.  Apart from those
who, like Buddha and Mahomet, have been raised
to the height of demi-gods by worshipping mil-
lions, there are names which leap inevitably to the
mind--such names as Savonarola, Luther, Cal-
vin, Rousseau--which stand for types and ex-
emplars of spiritual aspiration.  To this high
priesthood of the quick among the dead, who can
doubt that time will admit Leo Tolstoy--a genius
whose greatness has been obscured from us rather
than enhanced by his duality; a realist who strove
to demolish the mysticism of Christianity, and be-
came himself a mystic in the contemplation of
Nature; a man of ardent temperament and robust
physique, keenly susceptible to human passions
and desires, who battled with himself from early
manhood until the spirit, gathering strength with
years, inexorably subdued the flesh.

Tolstoy the realist steps without cavil into the
front rank of modern writers; Tolstoy the ideal-
ist has been constantly derided and scorned by
men of like birth and education with himself--
his altruism denounced as impracticable, his
preaching compared with his mode of life to prove
him inconsistent, if not insincere.  This is the
prevailing attitude of politicians and literary men.

Must one conclude that the mass of mankind
has lost touch with idealism? On the contrary,
in spite of modern materialism, or even because of
it, many leaders of spiritual thought have arisen
in our times, and have won the ear of vast audi-
ences.  Their message is a call to a simpler life,
to a recognition of the responsibilities of wealth,
to the avoidance of war by arbitration, and sink-
ing of class hatred in a deep sense of universal
brotherhood.

Unhappily, when an idealistic creed is formu-
lated in precise and dogmatic language, it invari-
ably loses something of its pristine beauty in the
process of transmutation.  Hence the Positivist
philosophy of Comte, though embodying noble
aspirations, has had but a limited influence. 
Again, the poetry of Robert Browning, though
less frankly altruistic than that of Cowper or
Wordsworth, is inherently ethical, and reveals
strong sympathy with sinning and suffering hu-
manity, but it is masked by a manner that is
sometimes uncouth and frequently obscure.  Ow-
ing to these, and other instances, idealism sug-
gests to the world at large a vague sentimentality
peculiar to the poets, a bloodless abstraction toyed
with by philosophers, which must remain a closed
book to struggling humanity.

Yet Tolstoy found true idealism in the toiling
peasant who believed in God, rather than in his
intellectual superior who believed in himself in the
first place, and gave a conventional  assent to the
existence of a deity in the second.  For the peas-
ant was still religious at heart with a naive unques-
tioning faith--more characteristic of the four-
teenth or fifteenth century than of to-day--and
still fervently aspired to God although sunk in su-
perstition and held down by the despotism of the
Greek Church.  It was the cumbrous ritual and
dogma of the orthodox state religion which roused
Tolstoy to impassioned protests, and led him step
by step to separate the core of Christianity from
its sacerdotal shell, thus bringing upon himself
the ban of excommunication.

The signal mark of the reprobation of "Holy
Synod" was slow in coming--it did not, in fact,
become absolute until a couple of years after the
publication of "Resurrection," in 1901, in spite
of the attitude of fierce hostility to Church and
State which Tolstoy had maintained for so long. 
This hostility, of which the seeds were primarily
sown by the closing of his school and inquisition
of his private papers in the summer of 1862, soon
grew to proportions far greater than those arising
from a personal wrong.  The dumb and submis-
sive moujik found in Tolstoy a living voice to ex-
press his sufferings.

Tolstoy was well fitted by nature and circum-
stances to be the peasant's spokesman.  He had
been brought into intimate contact with him in the
varying conditions of peace and war, and he knew
him at his worst and best.  The old home of the
family, Yasnaya Polyana, where Tolstoy, his
brothers and sister, spent their early years in
charge of two guardian aunts, was not only a halt-
ing-place for pilgrims journeying to and from the
great monastic shrines, but gave shelter to a num-
ber of persons of enfeebled minds belonging to
the peasant class, with whom the devout and
kindly Aunt Alexandra spent many hours daily in
religious conversation and prayer.

In "Childhood" Tolstoy apostrophises with
feeling one of those "innocents," a man named
Grisha, "whose faith was so strong that you felt
the nearness of God, your love so ardent that the
words flowed from your lips uncontrolled by your
reason.  And how did you celebrate his Majesty
when, words failing you, you prostrated yourself
on the ground, bathed in tears "  This picture of
humble religious faith was amongst Tolstoy's
earliest memories, and it returned to comfort him
and uplift his soul when it was tossed and en-
gulfed by seas of doubt.  But the affection he
felt in boyhood towards the moujiks became
tinged with contempt when his attempts to im-
prove their condition--some of which are de-
scribed in "Anna Karenina" and in the "Land-
lord's Morning"--ended in failure, owing to
the ignorance and obstinacy of the people.  It
was not till he passed through the ordeal of war
in Turkey and the Crimea that he discovered in
the common soldier who fought by his side an un-
conscious heroism, an unquestioning faith in God,
a kindliness and simplicity of heart rarely pos-
sessed by his commanding officer.

The impressions made upon Tolstoy during
this period of active service gave vivid reality to
the battle-scenes in "War and Peace," and are
traceable in the reflections and conversation of the
two heroes, Prince Andre and Pierre Besukhov. 
On the eve of the battle of Borodino, Prince
Andre, talking with Pierre in the presence of his
devoted soldier-servant Timokhine, says,--


"'Success cannot possibly be, nor has it ever
been, the result of strategy or fire-arms or num-
bers.'

"'Then what does it result from?' said Pierre.

"'From the feeling that is in me, that is in
him'--pointing to Timokhine--'and that is in
each individual soldier.'"


He then contrasts the different spirit animating
the officers and the men.


"'The former,' he says, 'have nothing in view
but their personal interests.  The critical moment
for them is the moment at which they are able to
supplant a rival, to win a cross or a new order.  I
see only one thing.  To-morrow one hundred
thousand Russians and one hundred thousand
Frenchmen will meet to fight; they who fight the
hardest and spare themselves the least will win
the day.'

"'There's the truth, your Excellency, the real
truth,' murmurs Timokhine; 'it is not a time to
spare oneself.  Would you believe it, the men of
my battalion have not tasted brandy? "It's not
a day for that," they said.'"


During the momentous battle which followed,
Pierre was struck by the steadfastness under fire
which has always distinguished the Russian soldier.


"The fall of each man acted as an increasing
stimulus.  The faces of the soldiers brightened
more and more, as if challenging the storm let
loose on them."


In contrast with this picture of fine "morale"
is that of the young white-faced officer, looking
nervously about him as he walks backwards with
lowered sword.

In other places Tolstoy does full justice to the
courage and patriotism of all grades in the Rus-
sian army, but it is constantly evident that his
sympathies are most heartily with the rank and
file.  What genuine feeling and affection rings in
this sketch of Plato, a common soldier, in "War
and Peace!"


"Plato Karataev was about fifty, judging by
the number of campaigns in which he had served;
he could not have told his exact age himself, and
when he laughed, as he often did, he showed two
rows of strong, white teeth.  There was not a
grey hair on his head or in his beard, and his
bearing wore the stamp of activity, resolution, and
above all, stoicism.  His face, though much
lined, had a touching expression of simplicity,
youth, and innocence.  When he spoke, in his soft
sing-song voice, his speech flowed as from a well-
spring.  He never thought about what he had
said or was going to say next, and the vivacity
and the rhythmical inflections of his voice gave it
a penetrating persuasiveness.  Night and morn-
ing, when going to rest or getting up, he said, 'O
God, let me sleep like a stone and rise up like a
loaf.' And, sure enough, he had no sooner lain
down than he slept like a lump of lead, and in the
morning on waking he was bright and lively, and
ready for any work.  He could do anything, just
not very well nor very ill; he cooked, sewed,
planed wood, cobbled his boots, and was always
occupied with some job or other, only allowing
himself to chat and sing at night.  He sang, not
like a singer who knows he has listeners, but as
the birds sing to God, the Father of all, feeling it
as necessary as walking or stretching himself. 
His singing was tender, sweet, plaintive, almost
feminine, in keeping with his serious countenance. 
When, after some weeks of captivity his beard
had grown again, he seemed to have got rid of
all that was not his true self, the borrowed face
which his soldiering life had given him, and to
have become, as before, a peasant and a man of
the people.  In the eyes of the other prisoners
Plato was just a common soldier, whom they
chaffed at times and sent on all manner of er-
rands; but to Pierre he remained ever after the
personification of simplicity and truth, such as he
had divined him to be since the first night spent
by his side."


This clearly is a study from life, a leaf from
Tolstoy's "Crimean Journal "  It harmonises
with the point of view revealed in the "Letters
from Sebastopol" (especially in the second and
third series), and shows, like them, the change
effected by the realities of war in the intolerant
young aristocrat, who previously excluded all but
the comme-il-faut from his consideration.  With
widened outlook and new ideals he returned to St.
Petersburg at the close of the Crimean campaign,
to be welcomed by the elite of letters and courted
by society.  A few years before he would have
been delighted with such a reception.  Now it
jarred on his awakened sense of the tragedy of
existence.  He found himself entirely out of sym-
pathy with the group of literary men who gath-
ered round him, with Turgenev at their head. 
In Tolstoy's eyes they were false, paltry, and
immoral, and he was at no pains to disguise his
opinions.  Dissension, leading to violent scenes,
soon broke out between Turgenev and Tolstoy;
and the latter, completely disillusioned both in
regard to his great contemporary and to the lit-
erary world of St. Petersburg, shook off the dust
of the capital, and, after resigning his commission
in the army, went abroad on a tour through Ger-
many, Switzerland, and France.

In France his growing aversion from capital
punishment became intensified by his witnessing a
public execution, and the painful thoughts aroused
by the scene of the guillotine haunted his sensitive
spirit for long.  He left France for Switzerland,
and there, among beautiful natural surroundings,
and in the society of friends, he enjoyed a respite
from mental strain.


"A fresh, sweet-scented flower seemed to have
blossomed in my spirit; to the weariness and in-
difference to all things which before possessed
me had succeeded, without apparent transition,
a thirst for love, a confident hope, an inexplicable
joy to feel myself alive."


Those halcyon days ushered in the dawn of an
intimate friendship between himself and a lady
who in the correspondence which ensued usually
styled herself his aunt, but was in fact a second
cousin.  This lady, the Countess Alexandra A.
Tolstoy, a Maid of Honour of the Bedchamber,
moved exclusively in Court circles.  She was in-
telligent and sympathetic, but strictly orthodox
and mondaine, so that, while Tolstoy's view of
life gradually shifted from that of an aristocrat
to that of a social reformer, her own remained
unaltered; with the result that at the end of some
forty years of frank and affectionate interchange
of ideas, they awoke to the painful consciousness
that the last link of mutual understanding had
snapped and that their friendship was at an end.

But the letters remain as a valuable and inter-
esting record of one of Tolstoy's rare friendships
with women, revealing in his unguarded confi-
dences fine shades of his many-sided nature, and
throwing light on the impression he made both on
his intimates and on those to whom he was only
known as a writer, while his moral philosophy
was yet in embryo.  They are now about to ap-
pear in book form  under the auspices of M.
Stakhovich, to whose kindness in giving me free
access to the originals I am indebted for the ex-
tracts which follow.  From one of the countess's
first letters we learn that the feelings of affection,
hope, and happiness which possessed Tolstoy in
Switzerland irresistibly communicated themselves
to those about him.

"You are good in a very uncommon way,
she writes," and that is why it is difficult to feel
unhappy in your company.  I have never seen
you without wishing to be a better creature. 
Your presence is a consoling idea. . . .
know all the elements in you that revive one's
heart, possibly without your being even aware
of it."


A few years later she gives him an amusing
account of the impression his writings had already
made on an eminent statesman.


"I owe you a small episode.  Not long ago,
when lunching with the Emperor, I sat next our
little Bismarck, and in a spirit of mischief I began
sounding him about you.  But I had hardly ut-
tered your name when he went off at a gallop
with the greatest enthusiasm, firing off the list of
your perfections left and right, and so long as he
declaimed your praises with gesticulations, cut
and thrust, powder and shot, it was all very well
and quite in character; but seeing that I listened
with interest and attention my man took the bit
in his teeth, and flung himself into a psychic apoth-
eosis.  On reaching full pitch he began to get
muddled, and floundered so helplessly in his own
phrases! all the while chewing an excellent cutlet
to the bone, that at last I realised nothing but the
tips of his ears--those two great ears of his.
What a pity I can't repeat it verbatim! but how?
There was nothing left but a jumble of confused
sounds and broken words."


Tolstoy on his side is equally expansive, and in
the early stages of the correspondence falls occa-
sionally into the vein of self-analysis which in later
days became habitual.


"As a child I believed with passion and with-
out any thought.  Then at the age of fourteen I
began to think about life and preoccupied myself
with religion, but it did not adjust itself to my
theories and so I broke with it.  Without it I
was able to live quite contentedly for ten years
. . . everything in my life was evenly dis-
tributed, and there was no room for religion. 
Then came a time when everything grew intelli-
gible; there were no more secrets in life, but life
itself had lost its significance."


He goes on to tell of the two years that he spent
in the Caucasus before the Crimean War, when
his mind, jaded by youthful excesses, gradually
regained its freshness, and he awoke to a sense
of communion with Nature which he retained to
his life's end.


"I have my notes of that time, and now read-
ing them over I am not able to understand how a
man could attain to the state of mental exaltation
which I arrived at.  It was a torturing but a
happy time."


Further on he writes,--


"In those two years of intellectual work, I dis-
covered a truth which is ancient and simple, but
which yet I know better than others do.  I found
out that immortal life is a reality, that love is a
reality, and that one must live for others if one
would be unceasingly happy."


At this point one realises the gulf which divides
the Slavonic from the English temperament.  No
average Englishman of seven-and-twenty (as Tol-
stoy was then) would pursue reflections of this
kind, or if he did, he would in all probability keep
them sedulously to himself.

To Tolstoy and his aunt, on the contrary, it
seemed the most natural thing in the world to
indulge in egoistic abstractions and to expatiate
on them; for a Russian feels none of the Anglo-
Saxon's mauvaise honte in describing his spiritual
condition, and is no more daunted by metaphysics
than the latter is by arguments on politics and
sport.

To attune the Anglo-Saxon reader's mind to
sympathy with a mentality so alien to his own,
requires that Tolstoy's environment should be de-
scribed more fully than most of his biographers
have cared to do.  This prefatory note aims,
therefore, at being less strictly biographical than
illustrative of the contributory elements and cir-
cumstances which sub-consciously influenced Tol-
stoy's spiritual evolution, since it is apparent that
in order to judge a man's actions justly one must
be able to appreciate the motives from which they
spring; those motives in turn requiring the key
which lies in his temperament, his associations, his
nationality.  Such a key is peculiarly necessary to
English or  American students of Tolstoy, because
of the marked contrast existing between the Rus-
sian and the Englishman or American in these
respects, a contrast by which Tolstoy himself was
forcibly struck during the visit to Switzerland, of
which mention has been already made.  It is diffi-
cult to restrain a smile at the poignant mental dis-
comfort endured by the sensitive Slav in the
company of the frigid and silent English frequent-
ers of the Schweitzerhof ("Journal of Prince D.
Nekhludov "  Lucerne, 1857), whose reserve,
he realised, was "not based on pride, but on the
absence of any desire to draw nearer to each
other"; while he looked back regretfully to the
pension in Paris where the table d' hote was a scene
of spontaneous gaiety.  The problem of British
taciturnity passed his comprehension; but for us
the enigma of Tolstoy's temperament is half
solved if we see him not harshly silhouetted
against a blank wall, but suffused with his native
atmosphere, amid his native surroundings.  Not
till we understand the main outlines of the Rus-
sian temperament can we realise the individuality
of Tolstoy himself:  the personality that made him
lovable, the universality that made him great.

So vast an agglomeration of races as that which
constitutes the Russian empire cannot obviously
be represented by a single type, but it will suffice
for our purposes to note the characteristics of the
inhabitants of Great Russia among whom Tolstoy
spent the greater part of his lifetime and to whom
be belonged by birth and natural affinities.

It may be said of the average Russian that in
exchange for a precocious childhood he retains
much of a child's lightness of heart throughout
his later years, alternating with attacks of morbid
despondency.  He is usually very susceptible to
feminine charm, an ardent but unstable lover,
whose passions are apt to be as shortlived as they
are violent.  Story-telling and long-winded dis-
cussions give him keen enjoyment, for he is gar-
rulous, metaphysical, and argumentative.  In
money matters careless and extravagant, dilatory
and venal in affairs; fond, especially in the peas-
ant class, of singing, dancing, and carousing; but
his irresponsible gaiety and heedlessness of conse-
quences balanced by a fatalistic courage and en-
durance in the face of suffering and danger. 
Capable, besides, of high flights of idealism,
which result in epics, but rarely in actions, owing
to the Slavonic inaptitude for sustained and or-
ganised effort.  The Englishman by contrast ap-
pears cold and calculating, incapable of rising
above questions of practical utility; neither inter-
ested in other men's antecedents and experiences
nor willing to retail his own.  The catechism
which Plato puts Pierre through on their first en-
counter ("War and Peace") as to his family,
possessions, and what not, are precisely similar
to those to which I have been subjected over and
over again by chance acquaintances in country-
houses or by fellow travellers on journeys by boat
or train.  The naivete and kindliness of the ques-
tioner makes it impossible to resent, though one
may feebly try to parry his probing.  On the
other hand he offers you free access to the inmost
recesses of his own soul, and stupefies you with
the candour of his revelations.  This, of course,
relates more to the landed and professional classes
than to the peasant, who is slower to express him-
self, and combines in a curious way a firm belief
in the omnipotence and wisdom of his social su-
periors with a rooted distrust of their intentions
regarding himself.  He is like a beast of burden
who flinches from every approach, expecting al-
ways a kick or a blow.  On the other hand, his
affection for the animals who share his daily work
is one of the most attractive points in his char-
acter, and one which Tolstoy never wearied of
emphasising--describing, with the simple pathos
of which he was master, the moujik inured to his
own privations but pitiful to his horse, shielding
him  from the storm with his own coat, or saving
him  from starvation with his own meagre ration;
and mindful of him even in his prayers, invoking,
like Plato, the blessings of Florus and Laura, pa-
tron saints of horses, because "one mustn't forget
the animals."

The characteristics of a people so embedded in
the soil bear a closer relation to their native land-
scape than our own migratory populations, and
patriotism with them has a deep and vital mean-
ing, which is expressed unconsciously in their
lives.

This spirit of patriotism which Tolstoy repudi-
ated is none the less the animating power of the
noble epic, "War and Peace," and of his peasant-
tales, of his rare gift of reproducing the expressive
Slav vernacular, and of his magical art of  infusing
his pictures of Russian scenery not merely with
beauty, but with spiritual significance.  I can
think of no prose writer, unless it be Thoreau, so
wholly under the spell of Nature as Tolstoy; and
while Thoreau was preoccupied with the normal
phenomena of plant and animal life, Tolstoy,
coming near to Pantheism, found responses to his
moods in trees, and gained spiritual expansion
from the illimitable skies and plains.  He fre-
quently brings his heroes into touch with Nature,
and endows them with all the innate mysticism of
his own temperament, for to him Nature was "a
guide to God "  So in the two-fold incident of
Prince Andre and the oak tree ("War and
Peace") the Prince, though a man of action
rather than of sentiment and habitually cynical,
is ready to find in the aged oak by the roadside,
in early spring, an animate embodiment of his
own despondency.


"'Springtime, love, happiness?--are you still
cherishing those deceptive illusions?' the old oak
seemed to say.  'Isn't it the same fiction ever?
There is neither spring, nor love, nor happiness!
Look at those poor weather-beaten firs, always the
same . . . look at the knotty arms issuing
from all up my  poor mutilated trunk--here I
am, such as they have made me, and I do not be-
lieve either in your hopes or in your illusions.'"


And after thus exercising his imagination, Prince
Andre still casts backward glances as he passes by,

"but the oak maintained its obstinate and sullen
immovability in the midst of the flowers and grass
growing at its feet.  'Yes, that oak is right, right
a thousand times over.  One must leave illusions
to youth.  But the rest of us know what life is
worth; it has nothing left to offer us.'"


Six weeks later he returns homeward the same
way, roused from his melancholy torpor by his
recent meeting with Natasha.


"The day was hot, there was storm in the air;
a slight shower watered the dust on the road and
the grass in the ditch; the left side of the wood
remained in the shade; the right side, lightly
stirred by the wind, glittered all wet in the sun;
everything was in flower, and from near and far
the nightingales poured forth their song.  'I
fancy there was an oak here that understood me,'
said Prince Andre to himself, looking to the left
and attracted unawares by the beauty of the very
tree he sought.  The transformed old oak spread
out in a dome of deep, luxuriant, blooming ver-
dure, which swayed in a light breeze in the rays
of the setting sun.  There were no longer cloven
branches nor rents to be seen; its former aspect
of bitter defiance and sullen grief had disap-
peared; there were only the young leaves, full of
sap that had pierced through the centenarian
bark, making the beholder question with surprise
if this patriarch had really given birth to them.
'Yes, it is he, indeed!' cried Prince Andre, and
he felt his heart suffused by the intense joy which
the springtime and this new life gave him . . .
'No, my life cannot end at thirty-one! . . .
It is not enough myself to feel what is within me,
others must know it too!  Pierre and that "slip"
of a girl, who would have fled into cloudland,
must learn to know me! My life must colour
theirs, and their lives must mingle with mine!'"


In letters to his wife, to intimate friends, and
in his diary, Tolstoy's love of Nature is often-
times expressed.  The hair shirt of the ascetic
and the prophet's mantle fall from his shoulders,
and all the poet in him wakes when, "with a feel-
ing akin to ecstasy," he looks up from his
smooth-running sledge at "the enchanting, starry
winter sky overhead," or in early spring feels on
a ramble "intoxicated by the beauty of the morn-
ing," while he notes that the buds are swelling on
the lilacs, and "the birds no longer sing at ran-
dom," but have begun to converse.

But though such allusions abound in his diary
and private correspondence, we must turn to
"The Cossacks," and "Conjugal Happiness" for
the exquisitely elaborated rural studies, which give
those early romances their fresh idyllic charm.

What is interesting to note is that this artistic
freshness and joy in Nature coexisted with acute
intermittent attacks of spiritual lassitude.  In
"The Cossacks," the doubts, the mental gropings
of Olenine--whose personality but thinly veils
that of Tolstoy--haunt him betimes even among
the delights of the Caucasian woodland; Serge,
the fatalistic hero of "Conjugal Happiness,"
calmly acquiesces in the inevitableness of "love's
sad satiety " amid the scent of roses and the songs
of nightingales.

Doubt and despondency, increased by the vexa-
tions and failures attending his philanthropic en-
deavours, at length obsessed Tolstoy to the verge
of suicide.


"The disputes over arbitration had become so
painful to me, the schoolwork so vague, my doubts
arising from the wish to teach others, while dis-
sembling my own ignorance of what should be
taught, were so heartrending that I fell ill.  I
might then have reached the despair to which I
all but succumbed fifteen years later, if there had
not been a side of life as yet unknown to me which
promised me salvation:  this was family life"
("My Confession").


In a word, his marriage with Mademoiselle
Sophie Andreevna Bers (daughter of Dr. Bers
of Moscow) was consummated in the autumn of
1862--after a somewhat protracted courtship,
owing to her extreme youth--and Tolstoy entered
upon a period of happiness and mental peace
such as he had never known.  His letters of this
period to Countess A. A. Tolstoy, his friend Fet,
and others, ring with enraptured allusions to his
new-found joy.  Lassitude and indecision, mysti-
cism and altruism, all were swept aside by the im-
petus of triumphant love and of all-sufficing
conjugal happiness.  When in June of the follow-
ing year a child was born, and the young wife,
her features suffused with "a supernatural
beauty" lay trying to smile at the husband who
knelt sobbing beside her, Tolstoy must have real-
ised that for once his prophetic intuition had been
unequal to its task.  If his imagination could
have conceived in prenuptial days what depths of
emotion might be wakened by fatherhood, he
would not have treated the birth of Masha's first
child in "Conjugal Happiness" as a trivial ma-
terial event, in no way affecting the mutual rela-
tions of the disillusioned pair.  He would have
understood that at this supreme crisis, rather than
in the vernal hour of love's avowal, the heart is
illumined with a joy which is fated "never to re-
turn."

The parting of the ways, so soon reached by
Serge and Masha, was in fact delayed in Tolstoy's
own life by his wife's intelligent assistance in his
literary work as an untiring amanuensis, and in
the mutual anxieties and pleasures attending the
care of a large family of young children.  Wider
horizons opened to his mental vision, his whole
being was quickened and invigorated.  "War
and Peace," "Anna Karenina," all the splendid
fruit of the teeming years following upon his mar-
riage, bear witness to the stimulus which his genius
had received.  His dawning recognition of the
power and extent of female influence appears in-
cidentally in the sketches of high society in those
two masterpieces as well as in the eloquent closing
passages of "What then must we do?"  (1886). 
Having affirmed that "it is women who form pub-
lic opinion, and in our day women are particu-
larly powerful," he finally draws a picture of the
ideal wife who shall urge her husband and train
her children to self-sacrifice.  "Such women rule
men and are their guiding stars. O women--
mothers! The salvation of the world lies in your
hands!"  In that appeal to the mothers of the
world there lurks a protest which in later writings
developed into overwhelming condemnation. 
True, he chose motherhood for the type of self-
sacrificing love in the treatise "On Life," which
appeared soon after "What then must we do?"
but maternal love, as exemplified in his own home
and elsewhere, appeared to him as a noble in-
stinct perversely directed.

The roots of maternal love are sunk deep in
conservatism.  The child's physical well-being is
the first essential in the mother's eyes--the
growth of a vigorous body by which a vigorous
mind may be fitly tenanted--and this form of
materialism which Tolstoy as a father accepted,
Tolstoy as idealist condemned; while the penury
he courted as a lightening of his soul's burden was
averted by the strenuous exertions of his wife. 
So a rift grew without blame attaching to either,
and Tolstoy henceforward wandered solitary in
spirit through a wilderness of thought, seeking
rest and finding none, coming perilously near to
suicide before he reached haven.

To many it will seem that the finest outcome
of that period of mental groping, internal strug-
gle, and contending with current ideas, lies in the
above-mentioned "What then must we do?"
Certain it is that no human document ever re-
vealed the soul of its author with greater sincer-
ity.  Not for its practical suggestions, but for its
impassioned humanity, its infectious altruism,
"What then must we do?" takes its rank among
the world's few living books.  It marks that stage
of Tolstoy's evolution when he made successive
essays in practical philanthropy which filled him
with discouragement, yet were "of use to his
soul" in teaching him how far below the surface
lie the seeds of human misery.  The slums of
Moscow, crowded with beings sunk beyond re-
demption; the famine-stricken plains of Samara
where disease and starvation reigned, notwith-
standing the stream of charity set flowing by Tol-
stoy's appeals and notwithstanding his untiring
personal devotion, strengthened further the con-
viction, so constantly affirmed in his writings, of
the impotence of money to alleviate distress. 
Whatever negations of this dictum our own sys-
tems of charitable organizations may appear to
offer, there can be no question but that in Russia
it held and holds true.

The social condition of Russia is like a tideless
sea, whose sullen quiescence is broken from time
to time by terrific storms which spend themselves
in unavailing fury.  Reaction follows upon every
forward motion, and the advance made by each
succeeding generation is barely perceptible.

But in the period of peace following upon the
close of the Crimean War the soul of the Russian
people was deeply stirred by the spirit of Prog-
ress, and hope rose high on the accession of Alex-
ander II.

The emancipation of the serfs was only one
among a number of projected reforms which en-
gaged men's minds.  The national conscience
awoke and echoed the cry of the exiled patriot
Herzen, "Now or never!"  Educational enter-
prise was aroused, and some  forty schools for
peasant children were started on the model of
that opened by Tolstoy at Yasnaya Polyana
(1861).  The literary world throbbed with new
life, and a brilliant company of young writers
came to the surface, counting among them names
of European celebrity, such as Dostoevsky, Ne-
krassov, and Saltykov.  Unhappily the reign of
Progress was short.  The bureaucratic circle hem-
ming in the Czar took  alarm, and made haste to
secure their ascendancy by fresh measures of op-
pression.  Many schools were closed, including
that of Tolstoy, and the nascent liberty of
the Press was stifled by the most rigid censor-
ship.

In this lamentable manner the history of Rus-
sia's internal misrule and disorder has continued
to repeat itself for the last sixty years, revolving
in the same vicious circle of fierce repression and
persecution and utter disregard of the rights of
individuals, followed by fierce reprisals on the
part of the persecuted; the voice of protest no
sooner raised than silenced in a prison cell or
among Siberian snow-fields, yet rising again and
again with inextinguishable reiteration; appeals
for political freedom, for constitutional govern-
ment, for better systems and wider dissemination
of education, for liberty of the Press, and for an
enlightened treatment of the masses, callously re-
ceived and rejected.  The answer with which
these appeals have been met by the rulers of Rus-
sia is only too well known to the civilised world,
but the obduracy of Pharoah has called forth the
plagues of Egypt.  Despite the unrivalled
agrarian fertility of Russia, famines recur with
dire frequency, with disease and riot in their train,
while the ignominious termination of the Russo-
Japanese war showed that even the magnificent
morale of the Russian soldier had been under-
mined and was tainted by the rottenness of the
authorities set over him.  What in such circum-
stances as these can a handful of philanthropists
achieve, and what avails alms-giving or the scat-
tering of largesse to a people on the point of spir-
itual dissolution?

In these conditions Tolstoy's abhorrence of
money, and his assertion of its futility as a pana-
cea for human suffering, appears not merely com-
prehensible but inevitable, and his renunciation
of personal property the strictly logical outcome
of his conclusions.  The partition of his estates
between his wife and children, shortly before the
outbreak of the great famine in 1892, served to
relieve his mind partially; and the writings of
Henry George, with which he became acquainted
at this critical time, were an additional incentive
to concentrate his thoughts on the land question. 
He began by reading the American propagandist's
"Social Problems," which arrested his attention
by its main principles and by the clearness and
novelty of his arguments.  Deeply impressed by
the study of this book, no sooner had he finished
it than he possessed himself of its forerunner,
"Progress and Poverty," in which the essence of
George's revolutionary doctrines is worked out.

The plan of land nationalisation there explained
provided Tolstoy with well thought-out and log-
ical reasons for a policy that was already more
than sympathetic to him.  Here at last was a
means of ensuring economic equality for all, from
the largest landowner to the humblest peasant--
a practical suggestion how to reduce the inequali-
ties between rich and poor.

Henry George's ideas and methods are easy of
comprehension.  The land was made by God for
every human creature that was born into the
world, and therefore to confine the ownership of
land to the few is wrong.  If a man wants a piece
of land, he ought to pay the rest of the community
for the enjoyment of it.  This payment or rent
should be the only tax paid into the Treasury of
the State.  Taxation on men's own property (the
produce of their own labour) should be done away
with, and a rent graduated according to the site-
value of the land should be substituted.  Monop-
olies would cease without violently and unjustly
disturbing society with confiscation and redistribu-
tion.  No one would keep land idle if he were
taxed according to its value to the community,
and not according to the use to which he individ-
ually wished to put it.  A man would then read-
ily obtain possession of land, and could turn it to
account and develop it without being taxed on his
own industry.  All human beings would thus be-
come free in their lives and in their labour. 
They would no longer be forced to toil at demor-
alising work for low wages; they would be inde-
pendent producers instead of earning a living by
providing luxuries for the rich, who had enslaved
them by monopolising the land.  The single tax
thus created would ultimately overthrow the pres-
ent "civilisation" which is chiefly built up on
wage-slavery.

Tolstoy gave his whole-hearted adhesion to
this doctrine, predicting a day of enlightenment
when men would no longer tolerate a form of
slavery which he considered as revolting as that
which had so recently been abolished.  Some long
conversations with Henry George, while he was
on a visit to Yasnaya Polyana, gave additional
strength to Tolstoy's conviction that in these
theories lay the elements essential to the trans-
formation and rejuvenation of human nature, go-
ing far towards the levelling of social inequalities. 
But to inoculate the landed proprietors of Russia
as a class with those theories was a task which
even his genius could not hope to accomplish.

He recognised the necessity of proceeding from
the particular to the general, and that the perfect-
ing of human institutions was impossible without
a corresponding perfection in the individual.  To
this end therefore the remainder of his life was
dedicated.  He had always held in aversion what
he termed external epidemic influences:  he now
endeavoured to free himself not only from all
current conventions, but from every association
which he had formerly cherished.  Self-analysis
and general observation had taught him that men
are sensual beings, and that sensualism must die
for want of food if it were not for sex instincts,
if it were not for Art, and especially for Music. 
This view of life he forcibly expressed in the
"Kreutzer Sonata," in which Woman and Music,
the two magnets of his youth, were impeached as
powers of evil.  Already, in "War and Peace"
and in "Anna Karenina," his descriptions of fe-
male charms resembled catalogues of weapons
against which a man must arm himself or perish. 
The beautiful Princess Helena, with her gleam-
ing shoulders, her faultless white bosom, and her
eternal smile is evidently an object of aversion to
her creator; even as the Countess Betsy, with her
petty coquetries and devices for attracting atten-
tion at the Opera and elsewhere, is a target for
his contempt.  "Woman is a stumbling-block in
a man's career," remarks a philosophical husband
in "Anna Karenina."  "It is difficult to love a
woman and do any good work, and the only way
to escape being reduced to inaction is to marry."

Even in his correspondence with the Countess
A. A. Tolstoy this slighting tone prevails.  "A
woman has but one moral weapon instead of the
whole male arsenal.  That is love, and only with
this weapon is feminine education successfully car-
ried forward "  Tolstoy, in fact, betrayed a touch
of orientalism in his attitude towards women. 
In part no doubt as a result of his motherless
youth, in part to the fact that his idealism was
never stimulated by any one woman as it was by
individual men, his views retained this colouring
on sex questions while they became widened and
modified in almost every other field of human
philosophy.  It was only that, with a revulsion
of feeling not seldom experienced by earnest
thinkers, attraction was succeeded by a repulsion
which reached the high note of exasperation
when he wrote to a man friend, "A woman in
good health--why, she is a regular beast of
prey!"

None the less, he showed great kindness and
sympathy to the women who sought his society,
appealing to him for guidance.  One of these (an
American, and herself a practical philanthropist),
Miss Jane Addams, expressed with feeling her
sense of his personal influence.  "The glimpse
of Tolstoy has made a profound impression on
me, not so much by what he said, as the life, the
gentleness, the soul of him.  I am sure you will
understand my saying that I got more of Tolstoy's
philosophy from our conversations than I had
gotten from our books."  (Quoted by Aylmer
Maude in his "Life of Tolstoy.")

As frequently happens in the lives of reformers,
Tolstoy found himself more often in affinity with
strangers than with his own kin.  The estrange-
ment of his ideals from those of his wife neces-
sarily affected their conjugal relations, and the
decline of mutual sympathy inevitably induced
physical alienation.  The stress of mental anguish
arising from these conditions found vent in pages
of his diaries (much of which I have been per-
mitted to read), pages containing matter too sa-
cred and intimate to use.  The diaries shed a
flood of light on Tolstoy's ideas, motives, and
manner of life, and have modified some of my
opinions, explaining many hitherto obscure points,
while they have also enhanced my admiration for
the man.  They not only touch on many delicate
subjects--on his relations to his wife and family
--but they also give the true reasons  for leaving
his home at last, and explain why he  did not do
so before.  The time, it seems to me, is not ripe
for disclosures of this nature, which so closely
concern the living.

Despite a strong rein of restraint his mental
distress permeates the touching letter of fare-
well which he wrote some sixteen years before his
death.  He, however, shrank from acting upon
it, being unable to satisfy himself that it was a
right step.  This letter has already appeared in
foreign publications,* but it is quoted here because


* And in Birukov's short Life of Tolstoy, 1911.
of the light which it throws on the character and
disposition of the writer, the workings of his mind
being of greater moment to us than those impul-
sive actions by which he was too often judged.


"I have suffered long, dear Sophie, from the
discord between my life and my beliefs.

"I cannot constrain you to alter your life or
your accustomed ways.  Neither have I had the
strength to leave you ere this, for I thought my
absence might deprive the little ones, still so
young, of whatever influence I may have over
them, and above all that I should grieve you. 
But I can no longer live as I have lived these last
sixteen years, sometimes battling with you and ir-
ritating you, sometimes myself giving way to the
influences and seductions to which I am accus-
tomed and which surround me.  I have now re-
solved to do what I have long desired:  to go away
. . .  Even as the Hindoos, at the age of sixty,
betake themselves to the jungle; even as every
aged and religious-minded man desires to conse-
crate the last years of his life to God and not to
idle talk, to making jokes, to gossiping, to lawn-
tennis; so I, having reached the age of seventy,
long with all my soul for calm and solitude, and if
not perfect harmony, at least a cessation from this
horrible discord between my whole life and my
conscience.

"If I had gone away openly there would have
been entreaties, discussions:  I should have wa-
vered, and perhaps failed to act on my decision,
whereas it must be so.  I pray of you to forgive
me if my action grieves  you. And do you, Sophie,
in particular let me go, neither seeking me out,
nor bearing me ill-will, nor blaming me . . .
the fact that I have left you does not mean that I
have cause of complaint against you . . . I
know you were not able, you were incapable of
thinking and seeing as I do, and therefore you
could not change your life and make sacrifices to
that which you did not accept.  Besides, I do not
blame you; on the contrary, I remember with love
and gratitude the thirty-five long years of our life
in common, and especially the first half of the
time when, with the courage and devotion of your
maternal nature, you bravely bore what you re-
garded as your mission.  You have given largely
of maternal love and made some heavy sacrifices
. . . but during the latter part of our life to-
gether, during the last fifteen years, our ways have
parted.  I cannot think myself the guilty one; I
know that if I have changed it is not owing to
you, or to the world, but because I could not do
otherwise; nor can I judge you for not having
followed me, and I thank you for what you have
given me and will ever remember it with affection.

Adieu, my dear Sophie, I love you."


The personal isolation he craved was never to
be his; but the isolation of spirit essential to
leadership, whether of thought or action, grew
year by year, so that in his own household he was
veritably "in it but not of it."

At times his loneliness weighed upon him, as
when he wrote:  "You would find it difficult to
imagine how isolated I am, to what an extent my
true self is despised by those who surround me."
But he must, none the less, have realised, as all
prophets and seers have done, that solitariness
of soul and freedom from the petty complexities
of social life are necessary to the mystic whose
constant endeavour is to simplify and to winnow,
the transient from the eternal.

Notwithstanding the isolation of his inner life
he remained--or it might more accurately be
said he became--the most accessible of men.

Appeals for guidance came to him from all
parts of the world--America, France, China,
Japan--while Yasnaya Polyana was the frequent
resort of those needing advice, sympathy, or prac-
tical assistance.  None appealed to him in vain;
at the same time, he was exceedingly chary of ex-
plicit rules of conduct.  It might be said of Tol-
stoy that he became a spiritual leader in spite of
himself, so averse was he from assuming author-
ity.  His aim was ever to teach his followers
themselves to hear the inward monitory voice,
and to obey it of their own accord.  "To know
the meaning of Life, you must first know the
meaning of Love," he would say; "and then see
that you do what love bids you "  His distrust
of "epidemic ideas" extended to religious com-
munities and congregations.


"We must not go to meet each other, but go
each of us to God.  You say it is easier to go all
together? Why yes, to dig or to mow.  But
one can only draw near to God in isolation
. . . I picture the world to myself as a vast
temple, in which the light falls from above in the
very centre.  To meet together all must go to-
wards the light.  There we shall find ourselves,
gathered from many quarters, united with men
we did not expect to see; therein is joy."


The humility which had so completely sup-
planted his youthful arrogance, and which made
him shrink from impelling others to follow in his
steps, endued him also with the teachableness of
a child towards those  whom he accepted as his
spiritual mentors.  It was a peasant noncon-
formist writer, Soutaev, who by conversing with
him on the revelations of the Gospels helped him
to regain his childhood's faith, and incidentally
brought him into closer relations with religious,
but otherwise untaught, men of the people.  He
saw how instead of railing against fate after the
manner of their social superiors, they endured
sickness and misfortune with a calm confidence
that all was by the will of God, as it must be and
should be.  From his peasant teachers he drew
the watchwords Faith, Love, and Labour, and by
their light he established that concord in his own
life without which the concord of the universe re-
mains impossible to realise.  The process of in-
ward struggle--told with unsparing truth in
"Confession"--is finely painted in "Father
Serge," whose life story points to the conclusion
at which Tolstoy ultimately arrived, namely, that
not in withdrawal from the common trials and
temptations of men, but in sharing them, lies our
best fulfilment of our duty towards mankind and
towards God.  Tolstoy gave practical effect to
this principle, and to this long-felt desire to be of
use to the poor of the country, by editing and pub-
lishing, aided by his friend Chertkov,* popular


* In Russia and out of it Mr. Chertkov has been the subject of
violent attack.  Many of the misunderstandings of Tolstoy's later
years have also been attributed by critics, and by those who hate
or belittle his ideas, to the influence of this friend.  These at-
tacks are very regrettable and require a word of protest.  From
tales, suited to the means and intelligence of the
humblest peasant.  The undertaking was initiated
in 1885, and continued for many years to occupy
much of Tolstoy's time and energies.  He threw
himself with ardour into his editorial duties; read-
ing and correcting manuscripts, returning them
sometimes to the authors with advice as to their
reconstruction, and making translations from for-
eign works--all this in addition to his own orig-
inal contributions, in which he carried out the
principle which he constantly laid down for his
collaborators, that literary graces must be set
aside, and that the mental calibre of those for
whom the books were primarily intended must
be constantly borne in mind.  He attained a
splendid fulfilment of his own theories, employing
the moujik's expressive vernacular in portraying
his homely wisdom, religious faith, and goodness
of nature.  Sometimes the prevailing simplicity
of style and motive is tinged with a vague colour-
ing of oriental legend, but the personal accent is
marked throughout.  No similar achievement in

the beginning Mr. Chertkov has striven to spread the ideas of
Tolstoy, and has won neither glory nor money from his faithful
and single-hearted devotion.  He has carried on his work with a
rare love and sympathy in spite of difficulties.  No one appre-
ciated or valued his friendship and self-sacrifice more than
Tolstoy himself, who was firmly attached to him from the date
of his first meeting, consulting him and confiding in him at every
moment, even during Mr. Chertkov's long exile.
modern literature has awakened so universal a
sense of sympathy and admiration, perhaps be-
cause none has been so entirely a labour of love.

The series of educational primers which Tol-
stoy prepared and published concurrently with the
"Popular Tales" have had an equally large,
though exclusively Russian, circulation, being ad-
mirably suited to their purpose--that of teach-
ing young children the rudiments of history,
geography, and science.  Little leisure remained
for the service of Art.

The history of Tolstoy as a man of letters
forms a separate page of his biography, and one
into which it is not possible to enter in the brief
compass of this introduction.  It requires, how-
ever, a passing allusion.  Tolstoy even in his early
days never seems to have approached near to that
manner of life which the literary man leads:
neither to have shut himself up in his study, nor
to have barred the entrance to disturbing friends. 
On the one hand, he was fond of society, and dur-
ing his brief residence in St. Petersburg was never
so engrossed in authorship as to forego the pleas-
ure of a ball or evening entertainment.  Little
wonder, when one looks back at the brilliant young
officer surrounded and petted by the great hos-
tesses of Russia.  On the other hand, he was no
devotee at the literary altar.  No patron of lit-
erature could claim him as his constant visitor;
no inner circle of men of letters monopolised his
idle hours.  Afterwards, when he left the capital
and settled in the country, he was almost entirely
cut off from the association of literary men, and
never seems to have sought their companionship. 
Nevertheless, he had all through his life many fast
friends, among them such as the poet Fet, the nov-
elist Chekhov, and the great Russian librarian
Stassov, who often came to him.  These visits
always gave him pleasure.  The discussions,
whether on the literary movements of the day or
on the merits of Goethe or the humour of Gogol,
were welcome interruptions to his ever-absorbing
metaphysical studies.  In later life, also, though
never in touch with the rising generation of
authors, we find him corresponding with them,
criticising their style and subject matter.  When
Andreev, the most modern of all modern Russian
writers, came to pay his respects to Tolstoy some
months before his death, he was received with
cordiality, although Tolstoy, as he expressed him-
self afterwards, felt that there was a great gulf
fixed between them.

Literature, as literature, had lost its charm for
him.  "You are perfectly right," he writes to a
friend; "I care only for the idea, and I pay no
attention to my style "  The idea was the impor-
tant thing to Tolstoy in everything that he read
or wrote.  When his attention was drawn to an
illuminating essay on the poet Lermontov he was
pleased with it, not because it demonstrated Ler-
montov's position in the literary history of Rus-
sia, but because it pointed out the moral aims
which underlay the wild Byronism of his works. 
He reproached the novelist Leskov, who had sent
him his latest novel, for the "exuberance" of his
flowers of speech and for his florid sentences--
beautiful in their way, he says, but inexpedient
and unnecessary.  He even counselled the younger
generation to give up poetry as a form of expres-
sion and to use prose instead.  Poetry, he main-
tained, was always artificial and obscure.  His
attitude towards the art of writing remained to
the end one of hostility.  Whenever he caught
himself working for art he was wont to reproach
himself, and his diaries contain many recrimina-
tions against his own weakness in yielding to this
besetting temptation.  Yet to these very lapses
we are indebted for this collection of fragments.

The greater number of stories and plays con-
tained in these volumes date from the years fol-
lowing upon Tolstoy's pedagogic activity.  Long
intervals, however, elapsed in most cases between
the original synopsis and the final touches.  Thus
"Father Serge," of which he sketched the outline
to Mr. Chertkov in 1890, was so often put aside
to make way for purely ethical writings that not
till 1898 does the entry occur in his diary, "To-
day, quite unexpectedly, I finished Serge "  A
year previously a dramatic incident had come to
his knowledge, which he elaborated in the play
entitled "The Man who was dead "  It ran on
the lines familiarised by Enoch Arden and similar
stories, of a wife deserted by her husband and
supported in his absence by a benefactor, whom
she subsequently marries.  In this instance the
supposed dead man was suddenly resuscitated as
the result of his own admissions in his cups, the
wife and her second husband being consequently
arrested and condemned to a term of imprison-
ment.  Tolstoy seriously attacked the subject
during the summer of 1900, and having brought
it within a measurable distance of completion in a
shorter time than was usual with him, submitted
it to the judgment of a circle of friends.  The
drama made a deep impression on the privileged
few who read it, and some mention of it appeared
in the newspapers.

Shortly afterwards a young man came to see
Tolstoy in private.  He begged him to refrain
from publishing "The Man who was dead," as it
was the history of his mother's life, and would dis-
tress her gravely, besides possibly occasioning
further police intervention.  Tolstoy promptly
consented, and the play remained, as it now ap-
pears, in an unfinished condition.  He had al-
ready felt doubtful whether "it was a thing God
would approve," Art for Art's sake having in his
eyes no right to existence.  For this reason a
didactic tendency is increasingly evident in these
later stories.  "After the Ball" gives a painful
picture of Russian military cruelty; "The Forged
Coupon" traces the cancerous growth of evil,
and demonstrates with dramatic force the cumu-
lative misery resulting from one apparently trivial
act of wrongdoing.

Of the three plays included in these volumes,
"The Light that shines in Darkness" has a spe-
cial claim to our attention as an example of auto-
biography in the guise of drama.  It is a speci-
men of Tolstoy's gift of seeing himself as others
saw him, and viewing a question in all its bear-
ings.  It presents not actions but ideas, giving
with entire impartiality the opinions of his home
circle, of his friends, of the Church and of the
State, in regard to his altruistic propaganda and
to the anarchism of which he has been accused. 
The scene of the renunciation of the estates of the
hero may be taken as a literal version of what
actually took place in regard to Tolstoy himself,
while the dialogues by which the piece is carried
forward are more like verbatim records than im-
aginary conversations.

This play was, in addition, a medium by which
Tolstoy emphasised his abhorrence of military
service, and probably for this reason its produc-
tion is absolutely forbidden in Russia.  A word
may be said here on Tolstoy's so-called Anarchy,
a term admitting of grave misconstruction.  In
that he denied the benefit of existing governments
to the people over whom they ruled, and in that
he stigmatised standing armies as "collections of
disciplined murderers," Tolstoy was an Anarchist;
but in that he reprobated the methods of violence,
no matter how righteous the cause at stake, and
upheld by word and deed the gospel of Love and
submission, he cannot be judged guilty of Anar-
chism in its full significance.  He could not, how-
ever, suppress the sympathy which he felt with
those whose resistance to oppression brought them
into deadly conflict with autocracy.  He found
in the Caucasian chieftain, Hadji Murat, a sub-
ject full of human interest and dramatic possibili-
ties; and though some eight years passed before
he corrected the manuscript for the last time (in
1903), it is evident from the numbers of entries
in his diary that it had greatly occupied his
thoughts so far back even as the period which he
spent in Tiflis prior to the Crimean war.  It was
then that the final subjugation of the Caucasus
took place, and Shamil and his devoted band
made their last struggle for freedom.  After the
lapse of half a century, Tolstoy gave vent in
"Hadji Murat" to the resentment which the
military despotism of Nicholas I. had roused in
his sensitive and fearless spirit.

Courage was the dominant note in Tolstoy's
character, and none have excelled him in portray-
ing brave men.  His own fearlessness was of the
rarest, in that it was both physical and moral. 
The mettle tried and proved at Sebastopol sus-
tained him when he had drawn on himself the
bitter animosity of "Holy Synod" and the relent-
less anger of Czardom.  In spite of his non-
resistance doctrine, Tolstoy's courage was not of
the passive order.  It was his natural bent to
rouse his foes to combat, rather than wait for
their attack, to put on the defensive every false-
hood and every wrong of which he was cognisant. 
Truth in himself and in others was what he most
desired, and that to which he strove at all costs
to attain.  He was his own severest critic, weigh-
ing his own actions, analysing his own thoughts,
and baring himself to the eyes of the world with
unflinching candour.  Greatest of autobiogra-
phers, he extenuates nothing:  you see the whole
man with his worst faults and best qualities; weak-
nesses accentuated by the energy with which they
are charactered, apparent waste of mental forces
bent on solving the insoluble, inherited tastes and
prejudices, altruistic impulses and virile passions,
egoism and idealism, all strangely mingled and
continually warring against each other, until from
the death-throes of spiritual conflict issued a new
birth and a new life.  In the ancient Scripture
"God is love" Tolstoy discerned fresh meaning,
and strove with superhuman energy to bring home
that meaning to the world at large.  His doctrine
in fact appears less as a new light in the darkness
than as a revival of the pure flame of "the Mystic
of the Galilean hills," whose teaching he accepted
while denying His divinity.

Of Tolstoy's beliefs in regard to the Christian
religion it may be said that with advancing years
he became more and more disposed to regard
religious truth as one continuous stream of spirit-
ual thought flowing through the ages of man's
history, emanating principally from the inspired
prophets and seers of Israel, India, and China. 
Finally, in 1909, in a letter to a friend he summed
up his conviction in the following words:--


"For me the doctrine of Jesus is simply one of
those beautiful religious doctrines which we have
received from Egyptian, Jewish, Hindoo, Chi-
nese, and Greek antiquity.  The two great prin-
ciples of Jesus:  love of God--in a word absolute
perfection--and love of one's neighbour, that is
to say, love of all men without distinction, have
been preached by all the sages of the world--
Krishna, Buddha, Lao-tse, Confucius, Socrates,
Plato, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and among
the moderns, Rousseau, Pascal, Kant, Emerson,
Channing, and many others.  Religious and
moral truth is everywhere and always the same.  I
have no predilection whatever for Christianity. 
If I have been particularly interested in the doc-
trine of Jesus it is, firstly, because I was born in
that religion and have lived among Christians;
secondly, because I have found a great spiritual
joy in freeing the doctrine in its purity from
the astounding falsifications. wrought by the
Churches."


Tolstoy's life-work was indeed a splendid striv-
ing to free truth from falsehood, to simplify the
complexities of civilisation and demonstrate their
futility.  Realists as gifted have come and gone
and left but little trace.  It is conceivable that
the great trilogy of "Anna Karenina," " War and
Peace," and "Resurrection" may one day be for-
gotten, but Tolstoy's teaching stands on firmer
foundations, and has stirred the hearts of thou-
sands who are indifferent to the finest display of
psychic analysis.  He has taught men to venture
beyond the limits set by reason, to rise above the
actual and to find the meaning of life in love.  It
was his mission to probe our moral ulcers to the
roots and to raise moribund ideals from the dust,
breathing his own vitality into them, till they rose
before our eyes as living aspirations.  The spir-
itual joy of which he wrote was no rhetorical
hyperbole; it was manifest in the man himself,
and was the fount of the lofty idealism which
made him not only "the Conscience of Russia"
but of the civilised world.

Idealism is one of those large abstractions
which are invested by various minds with varying
shades of meaning, and which find expression in
an infinite number of forms.  Ideals bred and fos-
tered in the heart of man receive at birth an im-
press from the life that engenders them, and when
that life is tempest-tossed the thought that springs
from it must bear a birth-mark of the storm. 
That birth-mark is stamped on all Tolstoy's utter-
ances, the simplest and the most metaphysical. 
But though he did not pass scathless through the
purging fires, nor escape with eyes undimmed from
the mystic light which flooded his soul, his ideal
is not thereby invalidated.  It was, he admitted,
unattainable, but none the less a state of perfec-
tion to which we must continually aspire, un-
daunted by partial failure.


"There is nothing wrong in not living up to
the ideal which you have made for yourself, but
what is wrong is, if on looking back, you cannot
see that you have made the least step nearer to
your ideal."


How far Tolstoy's doctrines may influence suc-
ceeding generations it is impossible to foretell;
but when time has extinguished what is merely
personal or racial, the divine spark which he re-
ceived from his great spiritual forerunners in other
times and countries will undoubtedly be found
alight.  His universality enabled him to unite
himself closely with them in mental sympathy;
sometimes so closely, as in the case of J. J. Rous-
seau, as to raise analogies and comparisons de-
signed to show that he merely followed in a well-
worn pathway.  Yet the similarity of Tolstoy's
ideas to those of the author of the "Contrat So-
cial" hardly goes beyond a mutual distrust of
Art and Science as aids to human happiness and
virtue, and a desire to establish among mankind
a true sense of brotherhood.  For the rest, the
appeals which they individually made to Human-
ity were as dissimilar as the currents of their lives,
and equally dissimilar in effect.

The magic flute of Rousseau's eloquence
breathed fanaticism into his disciples, and a desire
to mass themselves against the foes of liberty. 
Tolstoy's trumpet-call sounds a deeper note.  It
pierces the heart, summoning each man to the in-
quisition of his own conscience, and to justify his
existence by labour, that he may thereafter sleep
the sleep of peace.

The exaltation which he awakens owes nothing
to rhythmical language nor to subtle interpreta-
tions of sensuous emotion; it proceeds from a per-
ception of eternal truth, the truth that has love,
faith, courage, and self-sacrifice for the corner-
stones of its enduring edifice


NOTE--Owing to circumstances entirely outside the control of
the editor some of these translations have been done in haste and
there has not been sufficient time for revision.

The translators were chosen by an agent of the executor and
not by the editor.


LIST OF POSTHUMOUS WORKS, GIVING DATE

WHEN EACH WAS FINISHED OR LENGTH OF

TIME OCCUPIED IN WRITING.

Father Serge. 1890-98.
Introduction to the History of a Mother.  1894.
Memoirs of a Mother. 1894.
The Young Czar. 1894.
Diary of a Lunatic. 1896.
Hadji Murat. 1896-1904.
The Light that shines in Darkness. 1898-1901.
The Man who was dead. 1900.
After the Ball.  1903.
The Forged Coupon. 1904.
Alexis. 1905.
Diary of Alexander I. 1905.
The Dream. 1906.
Father Vassily. 1906.
There are no Guilty People. 1909.
The Wisdom of Children. 1909.
The Cause of it All. 1910.
Chodynko. 1910.
Two Travellers. Date uncertain.





THE FORGED COUPON




THE FORGED COUPON

PART FIRST

I

FEDOR MIHAILOVICH SMOKOVNIKOV, the presi-
dent of the local Income Tax Department, a man
of unswerving honesty--and proud of it, too--
a gloomy Liberal, a free-thinker, and an enemy
to every manifestation of religious feeling, which
he thought a relic of superstition, came home from
his office feeling very much annoyed.  The Gov-
ernor of the province had sent him an extraordi-
narily stupid minute, almost assuming that his
dealings had been dishonest.

Fedor Mihailovich felt embittered, and wrote
at once a sharp answer.  On his return home
everything seemed to go contrary to his wishes.

It was five minutes to five, and he expected the
dinner to be served at once, but he was told it was
not ready.  He banged the door and went to his
study.  Somebody knocked at the door.  "Who
the devil is that?" he thought; and shouted,--

"Who is there?"

The door opened and a boy of fifteen came in,
the son of Fedor Mihailovich, a pupil of the fifth
class of the local school.

"What do you want?"

"It is the first of the month to-day, father."

"Well! You want your money?"

It had been arranged that the father should pay
his son a monthly allowance of three roubles as
pocket money.  Fedor Mihailovich frowned, took
out of his pocket-book a coupon of two roubles
fifty kopeks which he found among the bank-
notes, and added to it fifty kopeks in silver out of
the loose change in his purse.  The boy kept si-
lent, and did not take the money his father prof-
fered him.

"Father, please give me some more in ad-
vance."

"What?"

"I would not ask for it, but I have borrowed a
small sum from a friend, and promised upon my
word of honour to pay it off.  My honour is dear
to me, and that is why I want another three rou-
bles.  I don't like asking you; but, please, father,
give me another three roubles."

"I have told you--"

"I know, father, but just for once."

"You have an allowance of three roubles and
you ought to be content.  I had not fifty kopeks
when I was your age."

"Now, all my comrades have much more.
Petrov and Ivanitsky have fifty roubles a month."

"And I tell you that if you behave like them
you will be a scoundrel.  Mind that."

"What is there to mind? You never under-
stand my position.  I shall be disgraced if I don't
pay my debt.  It is all very well for you to speak
as you do."

"Be off, you silly boy! Be off!"

Fedor Mihailovich jumped from his seat and
pounced upon his son.  "Be off, I say!" he
shouted.  "You deserve a good thrashing, all
you boys!"

His son was at once frightened and embittered. 
The bitterness was even greater than the fright. 
With his head bent down he hastily turned to the
door.  Fedor Mihailovich did not intend to strike
him, but he was glad to vent his wrath, and went
on shouting and abusing the boy till he had closed
the door.

When the maid came in to announce that din-
ner was ready, Fedor Mihailovich rose.

"At last!" he said.  "I don't feel hungry any
longer."

He went to the dining-room with a sullen face. 
At table his wife made some remark, but he gave
her such a short and angry answer that she ab-
stained from further speech.  The son also did
not lift his eyes from his plate, and was silent all
the time.  The trio finished their dinner in si-
lence, rose from the table and separated, without
a word.

After dinner the boy went to his room, took the
coupon and the change out of his pocket, and
threw the money on the table.  After that he
took off his uniform and put on a jacket.

He sat down to work, and began to study Latin
grammar out of a dog's-eared book.  After a
while he rose, closed and bolted the door, shifted
the money into a drawer, took out some ciga-
rette papers, rolled one up, stuffed it with cotton
wool, and began to smoke.

He spent nearly two hours over his grammar
and writing books without understanding a word
of what he saw before him; then he rose and be-
gan to stamp up and down the room, trying to
recollect all that his father had said to him.  All
the abuse showered upon him, and worst of all
his father's angry face, were as fresh in his mem-
ory as if he saw and heard them all over again. 
"Silly boy! You ought to get a good thrash-
ing!" And the more he thought of it the angrier
be grew.  He remembered also how his father
said:  "I see what a scoundrel you will turn out.
I know you will.  You are sure to become a cheat,
if you go on like that. . .  "  He had cer-
tainly forgotten how he felt when he was young!
"What crime have I committed, I wonder? I
wanted to go to the theatre, and having no money
borrowed some from Petia Grouchetsky.  Was
that so very wicked of me? Another father
would have been sorry for me; would have asked
how it all happened; whereas he just called me
names.  He never thinks of anything but himself. 
When it is he who has not got something he wants
--that is a different matter! Then all the house
is upset by his shouts.  And I--I am a scoundrel,
a cheat, he says.  No, I don't love him, although
he is my father.  It may be wrong, but I hate
him."

There was a knock at the door.  The servant
brought a letter--a message from his friend.
They want an answer," said the servant.

The letter ran as follows:  " I ask you now for
the third time to pay me back the six roubles you
have borrowed; you are trying to avoid me. 
That is not the way an honest man ought to be-
have.  Will you please send the amount by my
messenger? I am myself in a frightful fix.  Can
you not get the money somewhere?--Yours, ac-
cording to whether you send the money or not,
with scorn, or love,             Grouchetsky."


"There we have it! Such a pig! Could he
not wait a while? I will have another try."

Mitia went to his mother.  This was his last
hope.  His mother was very kind, and hardly
ever refused him anything.  She would probably
have helped him this time also out of his trouble,
but she was in great anxiety:  her younger child,
Petia, a boy of two, had fallen ill.  She got angry
with Mitia for rushing so noisily into the nursery,
and refused him almost without listening to what
he had to say.  Mitia muttered something to him-
self and turned to go.  The mother felt sorry
for him.  "Wait, Mitia,"" she said; "I have not
got the money you want now, but I will get it for
you to-morrow."

But Mitia was still raging against his father.

"What is the use of having it to-morrow, when
I want it to-day? I am going to see a friend. 
That is all I have got to say."

He went out, banging the door. . . .

"Nothing else is left to me.  He will tell me how
to pawn my watch," he thought, touching his
watch in his pocket.

Mitia went to his room, took the coupon and
the watch from the drawer, put on his coat, and
went to Mahin.


II

MAHIN was his schoolfellow, his senior, a grown-
up young man with a moustache.  He gambled,
had a large feminine acquaintance, and always had
ready cash.  He lived with his aunt.  Mitia
quite realised that Mahin was not a respectable
fellow, but when he was in his company he could
not help doing what he wished.  Mahin was in
when Mitia called, and was just preparing to go
to the theatre.  His untidy room smelt of scented
soap and eau-de-Cologne.

"That's awful, old chap," said Mahin, when
Mitia telling him about his troubles, showed the
coupon and the fifty kopeks, and added that he
wanted nine roubles more.  "We might, of
course, go and pawn your watch.  But we might
do something far better "  And Mahin winked
an eye.

"What's that?"

"Something quite simple "  Mahin took the
coupon in his hand.  " Put ONE before the 2.50
and it will be 12.50."

"But do such coupons exist?"

"Why, certainly; the thousand roubles notes
have coupons of 12.50. I have cashed one in
the same way."

"You don't say so?"

"Well, yes or no?" asked Mahin, taking the
pen and smoothing the coupon with the fingers of
his left hand.

"But it is wrong."

"Nonsense!"

"Nonsense, indeed," thought Mitia, and again
his father's hard words came back to his memory. 
"Scoundrel! As you called me that, I might as
well be it "  He looked into Mahin's face. 
Mahin looked at him, smiling with perfect ease.

"Well?" he said.

"All right.  I don't mind."

Mahin carefully wrote the unit in front of 2.50.

"Now let us go to the shop across the road;
they sell photographers' materials there.  I just
happen to want a frame--for this young person
here "  He took out of his pocket a photograph
of a young lady with large eyes, luxuriant hair,
and an uncommonly well-developed bust.

"Is she not sweet?  Eh?"

"Yes, yes. . .of course. . ."

"Well, you see.--But let us go."

Mahin took his coat, and they left the house.


III

THE two boys, having rung the door-bell, entered
the empty shop, which had shelves along the walls
and photographic appliances on them, together
with show-cases on the counters.  A plain woman,
with a kind face, came through the inner door and
asked from behind the counter what they required.

"A nice frame, if you please, madam."

"At what price?" asked the woman; she wore
mittens on her swollen fingers with which she rap-
idly handled picture-frames of different shapes.

"These are fifty kopeks each; and these are a
little more expensive.  There is rather a pretty
one, of quite a new style; one rouble and twenty
kopeks."

"All right, I will have this.  But could not
you make it cheaper? Let us say one rouble."

"We don't bargain in our shop," said the
shopkeeper with a dignified air.

"Well, I will take it," said Mahin, and put
the coupon on the counter.  "Wrap up the frame
and give me change.  But please be quick.  We
must be off to the theatre, and it is getting late."

"You have plenty of time," said the shop-
keeper, examining the coupon very closely because
of her shortsightedness.

"It will look lovely in that frame, don't you
think so? " said Mahin, turning to Mitia.

"Have you no small change? " asked the shop-
woman.

"I am sorry, I have not.  My father gave me
that, so I have to cash it."

"But surely you have one rouble twenty?"

"I have only fifty kopeks in cash.  But what
are you afraid of? You don't think, I suppose,
that we want to cheat you and give you bad
money? "

"Oh, no; I don't mean anything of the
sort."

"You had better give it to me back.  We will
cash it somewhere else."

"How much have I to pay you back? Eleven
and something."

She made a calculation on the counter, opened
the desk, took out a ten-roubles note, looked for
change and added to the sum six twenty-kopeks
coins and two five-kopek pieces.

"Please make a parcel of the frame," said
Mahin, taking the money in a leisurely fashion.

"Yes, sir "  She made a parcel and tied it
with a string.

Mitia only breathed freely when the door bell
rang behind them, and they were again in the
street.

"There are ten roubles for you, and let me
have the rest.  I will give it back to you."

Mahin went off to the theatre, and Mitia called
on Grouchetsky to repay the money he had bor-
rowed from him.


IV

AN hour after the boys were gone Eugene Mihail-
ovich, the owner of the shop, came home, and be-
gan to count his receipts.

"Oh, you clumsy fool! Idiot that you are!"
he shouted, addressing his wife, after having seen
the coupon and noticed the forgery.

"But I have often seen you, Eugene, accepting
coupons in payment, and precisely twelve rouble
ones," retorted his wife, very humiliated, grieved,
and all but bursting into tears.  "I really don't
know how they contrived to cheat me," she went
on. "They were pupils of the school, in uni-
form.  One of them was quite a handsome boy,
and looked so comme il faut."

"A comme il faut fool, that is what you are!"
The husband went on scolding her, while he
counted the cash. . . .  When I accept
coupons, I see what is written on them.  And you
probably looked only at the boys' pretty faces.
You had better behave yourself in your old age."

His wife could not stand this, and got into a
fury.

"That is just like you men! Blaming every-
body around you.  But when it is you who lose
fifty-four roubles at cards--that is of no conse-
quence in your eyes."

"That is a different matter

"I don't want to talk to you," said his wife,
and went to her room.  There she began to re-
mind herself that her family was opposed to her
marriage, thinking her present husband far below
her in social rank, and that it was she who insisted
on marrying him.  Then she went on thinking of
the child she had lost, and how indifferent her
husband had been to their loss.  She hated him
so intensely at that moment that she wished for
his death.  Her wish frightened her, however,
and she hurriedly began to dress and left the
house.  When her husband came from the shop
to the inner rooms of their flat she was gone. 
Without waiting for him she had dressed and
gone off to friends--a teacher of French in the
school, a Russified Pole, and his wife--who had
invited her and her husband to a party in their
house that evening.


V

THE guests at the party had tea and cakes offered
to them, and sat down after that to play whist at
a number of card-tables.

The partners of Eugene Mihailovich's wife
were the host himself, an officer, and an old and
very stupid lady in a wig, a widow who owned a
music-shop; she loved playing cards and played
remarkably well.  But it was Eugene Mihailo-
vich's wife who was the winner all the time.  The
best cards were continually in her hands.  At her
side she had a plate with grapes and a pear and
was in the best of spirits.

"And Eugene Mihailovich? Why is he so
late?" asked the hostess, who played at another
table.

"Probably busy settling accounts," said Eugene
Mihailovich's wife.  "He has to pay off the
tradesmen, to get in firewood "  The quarrel she
had with her husband revived in her memory;
she frowned, and her hands, from which she had
not taken off the mittens, shook with fury against
him.

"Oh, there he is.--We have just been speak-
ing of you," said the hostess to Eugene Mihailo-
vich, who came in at that very moment.  "Why
are you so late?"

"I was busy," answered Eugene Mihailovich,
in a gay voice, rubbing his hands.  And to his
wife's surprise he came to her side and said,--

"You know, I managed to get rid of the cou-
pon."

"No!  You don't say so!"

"Yes, I used it to pay for a cart-load of fire-
wood I bought from a peasant."

And Eugene Mihailovich related with great in-
dignation to the company present--his wife add-
ing more details to his narrative--how his wife
had been cheated by two unscrupulous schoolboys.

"Well, and now let us sit down to work," he
said, taking his place at one of the whist-tables
when his turn came, and beginning to shuffle the
cards.



VI

EUGENE MIHAILOVICH had actually used the cou-
pon to buy firewood from the peasant Ivan Mi-
ronov, who had thought of setting up in business
on the seventeen roubles he possessed.  He hoped
in this way to earn another eight roubles, and with
the twenty-five roubles thus amassed he intended
to buy a good strong horse, which he would want
in the spring for work in the fields and for driv-
ing on the roads, as his old horse was almost
played out.

Ivan Mironov's commercial method consisted
in buying from the stores a cord of wood and di-
viding it into five cartloads, and then driving
about the town, selling each of these at the price
the stores charged for a quarter of a cord.  That
unfortunate day Ivan Mironov drove out very
early with half a cartload, which he soon sold. 
He loaded up again with another cartload which
he hoped to sell, but he looked in vain for a cus-
tomer; no one would buy it.  It was his bad luck
all that day to come across experienced towns-
people, who knew all the tricks of the peasants in
selling firewood, and would not believe that he
had actually brought the wood from the country
as he assured them.  He got hungry, and felt
cold in his ragged woollen coat.  It was nearly
below zero when evening came on; his horse
which he had treated without mercy, hoping soon
to sell it to the knacker's yard, refused to move a
step.  So Ivan Mironov was quite ready to sell
his firewood at a loss when he met Eugene Mihail-
ovich, who was on his way home from the tobac-
conist.

"Buy my cartload of firewood, sir.  I will give
it to you cheap.  My poor horse is tired, and can't
go any farther."

"Where do you come from?"

"From the country, sir.  This firewood is
from our place.  Good dry wood, I can assure
you."

"Good wood indeed! I know your tricks. 
Well, what is your price?"

Ivan Mironov began by asking a high price,
but reduced it once, and finished by selling the
cartload for just what it had cost him.

"I'm giving it to you cheap, just to please you,
sir.--Besides, I am glad it is not a long way to
your house," he added.

Eugene Mihailovich did not bargain very much. 
He did not mind paying a little more, because he
was delighted to think he could make use of the
coupon and get rid of it.  With great difficulty
Ivan Mironov managed at last, by pulling the
shafts himself, to drag his cart into the courtyard,
where he was obliged to unload the firewood un-
aided and pile it up in the shed.  The yard-porter
was out.  Ivan Mironov hesitated at first to ac-
cept the coupon, but Eugene Mihailovich insisted,
and as he looked a very important person the peas-
ant at last agreed.

He went by the backstairs to the servants'
room, crossed himself before the ikon, wiped his
beard which was covered with icicles, turned up
the skirts of his coat, took out of his pocket a
leather purse, and out of the purse eight roubles
and fifty kopeks, and handed the change to Eu-
gene Mihailovich.  Carefully folding the coupon,
he put it in the purse.  Then, according to cus-
tom, he thanked the gentleman for his kindness,
and, using the whip-handle instead of the lash, he
belaboured the half-frozen horse that he had
doomed to an early death, and betook himself to
a public-house.

Arriving there, Ivan Mironov called for vodka
and tea for which he paid eight kopeks.  Com-
fortable and warm after the tea, he chatted in the
very best of spirits with a yard-porter who was
sitting at his table.  Soon he grew communicative
and told his companion all about the conditions of
his life.  He told him he came from the village
Vassilievsky, twelve miles from town, and also
that he had his allotment of land given to him
by his family, as he wanted to live apart from his
father and his brothers; that he had a wife and
two children; the elder boy went to school, and
did not yet help him in his work.  He also said he
lived in lodgings and intended going to the horse-
fair the next day to look for a good horse, and,
may be, to buy one.  He went on to state that he
had now nearly twenty-five roubles--only one
rouble short--and that half of it was a coupon. 
He took the coupon out of his purse to show to his
new friend.  The yard-porter was an illiterate
man, but he said he had had such coupons given
him by lodgers to change; that they were good;
but that one might also chance on forged ones;
so he advised the peasant, for the sake of security,
to change it at once at the counter.  Ivan Mironov
gave the coupon to the waiter and asked for
change.  The waiter, however, did not bring the
change, but came back with the manager, a bald-
headed man with a shining face, who was holding
the coupon in his fat hand.

"Your money is no good," he said, showing the
coupon, but apparently determined not to give it
back.

"The coupon must be all right.  I got it from
a gentleman."

"It is bad, I tell you.  The coupon is forged."

"Forged? Give it back to me."

"I will not.  You fellows have got to be pun-
ished for such tricks.  Of course, you did it your-
self--you and some of your rascally friends."

"Give me the money.  What right have
you--"

"Sidor! Call a policeman," said the barman
to the waiter.  Ivan Mironov was rather drunk,
and in that condition was hard to manage.  He
seized the manager by the collar and began to
shout.

"Give me back my money, I say.  I will go to
the gentleman who gave it to me.  I know where
he lives."

The manager had to struggle with all his force
to get loose from Ivan Mironov, and his shirt was
torn,--

"Oh, that's the way you behave! Get hold of
him."

The waiter took hold of Ivan Mironov; at that
moment the policeman arrived.  Looking very
important, he inquired what had happened, and
unhesitatingly gave his orders:

"Take him to the police-station."

As to the coupon, the policeman put it in his
pocket; Ivan Mironov, together with his horse,
was brought to the nearest station.



VII

IVAN MIRONOV had to spend the night in the po-
lice-station, in the company of drunkards and
thieves.  It was noon of the next day when he
was summoned to the police officer; put through
a close examination, and sent in the care of a po-
liceman to Eugene Mihailovich's shop.  Ivan Mi-
ronov remembered the street and the house.

The policeman asked for the shopkeeper,
showed him the coupon and confronted him with
Ivan Mironov, who declared that he had received
the coupon in that very place.  Eugene Mihailo-
vich at once assumed a very severe and astonished
air.

"You are mad, my good fellow," he said.  "I
have never seen this man before in my life," he
added, addressing the policeman.

"It is a sin, sir," said Ivan Mironov "  Think
of the hour when you will die."

"Why, you must be dreaming I You have
sold your firewood to some one else," said Eu-
gene Mihailovich.  "But wait a minute.  I will
go and ask my wife whether she bought any fire-
wood yesterday "  Eugene Mihailovich left them
and immediately called the yard-porter Vassily, a
strong, handsome, quick, cheerful, well-dressed
man.

He told Vassily that if any one should inquire
where the last supply of firewood was bought, he
was to say they'd got it from the stores, and not
from a peasant in the street.

"A peasant has come," he said to Vassily,
"who has declared to the police that I gave him
a forged coupon.  He is a fool and talks non-
sense, but you, are a clever man.  Mind you say
that we always get the firewood from the stores. 
And, by the way, I've been thinking some time of
giving you money to buy a new jacket," added Eu-
gene Mihailovich, and gave the man five roubles. 
Vassily looking with pleasure first at the five rou-
ble note, then at Eugene Mihailovich's face, shook
his head and smiled.

"I know, those peasant folks have no brains. 
Ignorance, of course.  Don't you be uneasy.  I
know what I have to say."

Ivan Mironov, with tears in his eyes, implored
Eugene Mihailovich over and over again to ac-
knowledge the coupon he had given him, and the
yard-porter to believe what he said, but it proved
quite useless; they both insisted that they had
never bought firewood from a peasant in the
street.  The policeman brought Ivan Mironov
back to the police-station, and he was charged with
forging the coupon.  Only after taking the ad-
vice of a drunken office clerk in the same cell with
him, and bribing the police officer with five rou-
bles, did Ivan Mironov get out of jail, without
the coupon, and with only seven roubles left out
of the twenty-five he had the day before.

Of these seven roubles he spent three in the
public-house and came home to his wife dead
drunk, with a bruised and swollen face.

His wife was expecting a child, and felt very
ill.  She began to scold her husband; he pushed
her away, and she struck him.  Without answer-
ing a word he lay down on the plank and began
to weep bitterly.

Not till the next day did he tell his wife what
had actually happened.  She believed him at
once, and thoroughly cursed the dastardly rich
man who had cheated Ivan.  He was sobered
now, and remembering the advice a workman had
given him, with whom he had many a drink the
day before, decided to go to a lawyer and tell him
of the wrong the owner of the photograph shop
had done him.



VIII

THE lawyer consented to take proceedings on be-
half of Ivan Mironov, not so much for the sake
of the fee, as because he believed the peasant, and
was revolted by the wrong done to him.

Both parties appeared in the court when the
case was tried, and the yard-porter Vassily was
summoned as witness.  They repeated in the
court all they had said before to the police officials. 
Ivan Mironov again called to his aid the name of
the Divinity, and reminded the shopkeeper of the
hour of death.  Eugene Mihailovich, although
quite aware of his wickedness, and the risks he
was running, despite the rebukes of his conscience,
could not now change his testimony, and went on
calmly to deny all the allegations made against
him.

The yard-porter Vassily had received another
ten roubles from his master, and, quite unper-
turbed, asserted with a smile that he did not know
anything about Ivan Mironov.  And when he
was called upon to take the oath, he overcame his
inner qualms, and repeated with assumed ease
the terms of the oath, read to him by the old
priest appointed to the court.  By the holy Cross
and the Gospel, he swore that he spoke the whole
truth.

The case was decided against Ivan Mironov,
who was sentenced to pay five roubles for expenses. 
This sum Eugene Mihailovich generously paid
for him.  Before dismissing Ivan Mironov, the
judge severely admonished him, saying he ought
to take care in the future not to accuse respectable
people, and that he also ought to be thankful that
he was not forced to pay the costs, and that he had
escaped a prosecution for slander, for which he
would have been condemned to three months' im-
prisonment.

"I offer my humble thanks," said Ivan Mi-
ronov; and, shaking his head, left the court with
a heavy sigh.

The whole thing seemed to have ended well for
Eugene Mihailovich and the yard-porter Vassily.
But only in appearance.  Something had hap-
pened which was not noticed by any one, but which
was much more important than all that had been
exposed to view.

Vassily had left his village and settled in town
over two years ago.  As time went on he sent
less and less money to his father, and he did not
ask his wife, who remained at home, to join him. 
He was in no need of her; he could in town have
as many wives as he wished, and much better ones
too than that clumsy, village-bred woman.  Vas-
sily, with each recurring year, became more and
more familiar with the ways of the town people,
forgetting the conventions of a country life. 
There everything was so vulgar, so grey, so poor
and untidy.  Here, in town, all seemed on the
contrary so refined, nice, clean, and rich; so or-
derly too.  And he became more and more con-
vinced that people in the country live just like
wild beasts, having no idea of what life is, and
that only life in town is real.  He read books
written by clever writers, and went to the perform-
ances in the Peoples' Palace.  In the country,
people would not see such wonders  even in dreams. 
In the country old men say:  "Obey the law, and
live with your wife; work; don't eat too much;
don't care for finery," while here, in town, all the
clever and learned people--those, of course,
who know what in reality the law is--only pur-
sue their own pleasures.  And they are the bet-
ter for it.

Previous to the incident of the forged coupon,
Vassily could not actually believe that rich people
lived without any moral law.  But after that,
still more after having perjured himself, and not
being the worse for it in spite of his fears--on
the contrary, he had gained ten roubles out of it
--Vassily became firmly convinced that no moral
laws whatever exist, and that the only thing to do
is to pursue one's own interests and pleasures. 
This he now made his rule in life.  He accord-
ingly got as much profit as he could out of pur-
chasing goods for lodgers.  But this did not pay
all his expenses.  Then he took to stealing, when-
ever chance offered--money and all sorts of val-
uables.  One day he stole a purse full of money
from Eugene Mihailovich, but was found out. 
Eugene Mihailovich did not hand him over to the
police, but dismissed him on the spot.

Vassily had no wish whatever to return home
to his village, and remained in Moscow with his
sweetheart, looking out for a new job.  He got
one as yard-porter at a grocer's, but with only
small wages.  The next day after he had entered
that service he was caught stealing bags.  The
grocer did not call in the police, but gave him a
good thrashing and turned him out.  After that
he could not find work.  The money he had left
was soon gone; he had to sell all his clothes and
went about nearly in rags.  His sweetheart left
him.  But notwithstanding, he kept up his high
spirits, and when the spring came he started to
walk home.



IX

PETER NIKOLAEVICH SVENTIZKY, a short man in
black spectacles (he had weak eyes, and was
threatened with complete blindness), got up, as
was his custom, at dawn of day, had a cup of tea,
and putting on his short fur coat trimmed with
astrachan, went to look after the work on his es-
tate.

Peter Nikolaevich had been an official in the
Customs, and had gained eighteen thousand rou-
bles during his service.  About twelve years ago
he quitted the service--not quite of his own ac-
cord:  as a matter of fact he had been compelled
to leave--and bought an estate from a young
land-owner who had dissipated his fortune.  Peter
Nikolaevich had married at an earlier period,
while still an official in the Customs.  His wife,
who belonged to an old noble family, was an
orphan, and was left without money.  She was
a tall, stoutish, good-looking woman.  They had
no children.  Peter Nikolaevich had considerable
practical talents and a strong will.  He was the
son of a Polish gentleman, and knew nothing
about agriculture and land management; but
when he acquired an estate of his own, he man-
aged it so well that after fifteen years the waste
piece of land, consisting of three hundred acres,
became a model estate.  All the buildings, from
the dwelling-house to the corn stores and the shed
for the fire engine were solidly built, had iron
roofs, and were painted at the right time.  In the
tool house carts, ploughs, harrows, stood in per-
fect order, the harness was well cleaned and oiled. 
The horses were not very big, but all home-bred,
grey, well fed, strong and devoid of blemish.

The threshing machine worked in a roofed
barn, the forage was kept in a separate shed, and
a paved drain was made from the stables.  The
cows were home-bred, not very large, but giving
plenty of milk; fowls were also kept in the poultry
yard, and the hens were of a special kind, laying
a great quantity of eggs.  In the orchard the fruit
trees were well whitewashed  and propped on poles
to enable them to grow straight.  Everything was
looked after--solid, clean, and in perfect order. 
Peter Nikolaevich rejoiced in the perfect condi-
tion of his estate, and was proud to have achieved
it--not by oppressing the peasants, but, on the
contrary, by the extreme fairness of his dealings
with them.

Among the nobles of his province he belonged
to the advanced party, and was more inclined to
liberal than conservative views, always taking the
side of the peasants against those who were still
in favour of serfdom.  "Treat them well, and
they will be fair to you," he used to say.  Of
course, he did not overlook any carelessness on
the part of those who worked on his estate, and
he urged them on to work if they were lazy; but
then he gave them good lodging, with plenty of
good food, paid their wages without any delay,
and gave them drinks on days of festival.

Walking cautiously on the melting snow--for
the time of the year was February--Peter Nikol-
aevich passed the stables, and made his way to
the cottage where his workmen were lodged. 
It was still dark, the darker because of the dense
fog; but the windows of the cottage were lighted. 
The men had already got up.  His intention was
to urge them to begin work.  He had arranged
that they should drive out to the forest and bring
back the last supply of firewood he needed before
spring.

"What is that?" he thought, seeing the door
of the stable wide open.  "Hallo, who is there?"

No answer.  Peter Nikolaevich stepped into
the stable.  It was dark; the ground was soft
under his feet, and the air smelt of dung; on the
right side of the door were two loose boxes for
a pair of grey horses.  Peter Nikolaevich
stretched out his hand in their direction--one
box was empty.  He put out his foot--the horse
might have been lying down.  But his foot did
not touch anything solid.  "Where could they
have taken the horse?" he thought.  They cer-
tainly had not harnessed it; all the sledges stood
still outside.  Peter Nikolaevich went out of the
stable.

"Stepan, come here!" he called.

Stepan was the head of the workmen's gang. 
He was just stepping out of the cottage.

"Here I am!" he said, in a cheerful voice. 
"Oh, is that you, Peter Nikolaevich? Our men
are coming."

"Why is the stable door open?

"Is it? I don't know anything about it.  I
say, Proshka, bring the lantern!"

Proshka came with the lantern.  They all went
to the stable, and Stepan knew at once what had
happened.

"Thieves have been here, Peter Nikolaevich,"
he said.  "The lock is broken."

"No; you don't say so!"

"Yes, the brigands! I don't see 'Mashka.'
'Hawk' is here.  But 'Beauty' is not.  Nor yet
'Dapple-grey.'"

Three horses had been stolen!

Peter Nikolaevich did not utter a word at first. 
He only frowned and took deep breaths.

"Oh," he said after a while.  "If only I could
lay hands on them! Who was on guard?"

"Peter.  He evidently fell asleep."

Peter Nikolaevich called in the police, and
making an appeal to all the authorities, sent his
men to track the thieves.  But the horses were
not to be found.

"Wicked people," said Peter Nikolaevich.
"How could they! I was always so kind to
them.  Now, wait! Brigands! Brigands the
whole lot of them.  I will no longer be kind."



X

IN the meanwhile the horses, the grey ones, had
all been disposed of; Mashka was sold to the gip-
sies for eighteen roubles; Dapple-grey was ex-
changed for another horse, and passed over to
another peasant who lived forty miles away from
the estate; and Beauty died on the way.  The man
who conducted the whole affair was--Ivan Mi-
ronov.  He had been employed on the estate, and
knew all the whereabouts of Peter Nikolaevich.
He wanted to get back the money he had lost, and
stole the horses for that reason.

After his misfortune with the forged coupon,
Ivan Mironov took to drink; and all he possessed
would have gone on drink if it had not been for
his wife, who locked up his clothes, the horses'
collars, and all the rest of what he would other-
wise have squandered in public-houses.  In his
drunken state Ivan Mironov was continually
thinking, not only of the man who had wronged
him, but of all the rich people who live on robbing
the poor.  One day he had a drink with some
peasants from the suburbs of Podolsk, and was
walking home together with them.  On the way
the peasants, who were completely drunk, told him
they had stolen a horse from a peasant's cottage. 
Ivan Mironov got angry, and began to abuse the
horse-thieves.

"What a shame!" he said.  "A horse is like
a brother to the peasant.  And you robbed him of
it?  It is a great sin, I tell you.  If you go in for
stealing horses, steal them from the landowners. 
They are worse than dogs, and deserve anything."

The talk went on, and the peasants from Po-
dolsk told him that it required a great deal of
cunning to steal a horse on an estate.

"You must know all the ins and outs of the
place, and must have somebody on the spot to
help you."

Then it occurred to Ivan Mironov that he knew
a landowner--Sventizky; he had worked on his
estate, and Sventizky, when paying him off, had
deducted one rouble and a half for a broken tool. 
He remembered well the grey horses which he
used to drive at Sventizky's.

Ivan Mironov called on Peter Nikolaevich pre-
tending to ask for employment, but really in or-
der to get the information he wanted.  He took
precautions to make sure that the watchman was
absent, and that the horses were standing in their
boxes in the stable.  He brought the thieves to
the place, and helped them to carry off the three
horses.

They divided their gains, and Ivan Mironov
returned to his wife with five roubles in his pocket. 
He had nothing to do at home, having no horse
to work in the field, and therefore continued to
steal horses in company with professional horse-
thieves and gipsies.



XI

PETER NIKOLAEVICH SVENTIZKY did his best to
discover who had stolen his horses.  He knew
somebody on the estate must have helped the
thieves, and began to suspect all his staff.  He
inquired who had slept out that night, and the
gang of the working men told him Proshka had
not been in the whole night.  Proshka, or Prokofy
Nikolaevich, was a young fellow who had just fin-
ished his military service, handsome, and skilful
in all he did; Peter Nikolaevich employed him at
times as coachman.  The district constable was a
friend of Peter Nikolaevich, as were the provin-
cial head of the police, the marshal of the nobility,
and also the rural councillor and the examining
magistrate.  They all came to his house on his
saint's day, drinking the cherry brandy he offered
them with pleasure, and eating the nice preserved
mushrooms of all kinds to accompany the liqueurs. 
They all sympathised with him in his trouble and
tried to help him.

"You always used to take the side of the peas-
ants," said the district constable, "and there you
are!  I was right in saying they are worse than
wild beasts.  Flogging is the only way to keep
them in order.  Well, you say it is all Proshka's
doings.  Is it not he who was your coachman
sometimes?"

"Yes, that is he."

"Will you kindly call him?"

Proshka was summoned before the constable,
who began to examine him.

"Where were you that night?"

Proshka pushed back his hair, and his eyes
sparkled.

"At home."

"How so? All the men say you were not in."

"Just as you please, your honour."

"My pleasure has nothing to do with the mat-
ter.  Tell me where you were that night."

"At home."

"Very well.  Policeman, bring him to the po-
lice-station."

The reason why Proshka did not say where he
had been that night was that he had spent it with
his sweetheart, Parasha, and had promised not to
give her away.  He kept his word.  No proofs
were discovered against him, and he was soon dis-
charged.  But Peter Nikolaevich was convinced
that Prokofy had been at the bottom of the whole
affair, and began to hate him.  One day Proshka
bought as usual at the merchant's two measures of
oats.  One and a half he gave to the horses, and
half a measure he gave back to the merchant; the
money for it he spent in drink.  Peter Nikolae-
vich found it out, and charged Prokofy with cheat-
ing.  The judge sentenced the man to three
months' imprisonment.

Prokofy had a rather proud nature, and thought
himself superior to others.  Prison was a great
humiliation for him.  He came out of it very
depressed; there was nothing more to be proud
of in life.  And more than that, he felt extremely
bitter, not only against Peter Nikolaevich, but
against the whole world.

On the whole, as all the people around him no-
ticed, Prokofy became another man after his im-
prisonment, both careless and lazy; he took to
drink, and he was soon caught stealing clothes at
some woman's house, and found himself again in
prison.

All that Peter Nikolaevich discovered about his
grey horses was the hide of one of them, Beauty,
which had been found somewhere on the estate. 
The fact that the thieves had got off scot-free
irritated Peter Nikolaevich still more.  He was
unable now to speak of the peasants or to look at
them without anger.  And whenever he could he
tried to oppress them.



XII

AFTER having got rid of the coupon, Eugene
Mihailovich forgot all about it; but his wife, Ma-
ria Vassilievna, could not forgive herself for hav-
ing been taken in, nor yet her husband for his cruel
words.  And most of all she was furious against
the two boys who had so skilfully cheated her.
From the day she had accepted the forged coupon
as payment, she looked closely at all the school-
boys who came in her way in the streets.  One
day she met Mahin, but did not recognise him,
for on seeing her he made a face which quite
changed his features.  But when, a fortnight after
the incident with the coupon, she met Mitia
Smokovnikov face to face, she knew him at once.

She let him pass her, then turned back and
followed him, and arriving at his house she made
inquiries as to whose son he was.  The next day
she went to the school and met the divinity
instructor, the priest Michael Vedensky, in the
hall.  He asked her what she wanted.  She an-
swered that she wished to see the head of the
school.  "He is not quite well," said the priest. 
"Can I be of any use to you, or give him your
message?"

Maria Vassilievna thought that she might as
well tell the priest what was the matter.  Michael
Vedensky was a widower, and a very ambitious
man.  A year ago he had met Mitia Smokovni-
kov's father in society, and had had a discussion
with him on religion.  Smokovnikov had beaten
him decisively on all points; indeed, he had made
him appear quite ridiculous.  Since that time the
priest had decided to pay special attention to
Smokovnikov's son; and, finding him as indifferent
to religious matters as his father was, he began
to persecute him, and even brought about his fail-
ure in examinations.

When Maria Vassilievna told him what young
Smokovnikov had done to her, Vedensky could
not help feeling an inner satisfaction.  He saw in
the boy's conduct a proof of the utter wickedness
of those who are not guided by the rules of the
Church.  He decided to take advantage of this
great opportunity of warning unbelievers of the
perils that threatened them.  At all events, he
wanted to persuade himself that this was the only
motive that guided him in the course he had re-
solved to take.  But at the bottom of his heart he
was only anxious to get his revenge on the proud
atheist.

"Yes, it is very sad indeed," said Father Mi-
chael, toying with the cross he was wearing over
his priestly robes, and passing his hands over its
polished sides.  "I am very glad you have given
me your confidence.  As a servant of the Church
I shall admonish the young man--of course with
the utmost kindness.  I shall certainly do it in
the way that befits my holy office," said Father
Michael to himself, really thinking that he had
forgotten the ill-feeling the boy's father had to-
wards him.  He firmly believed the boy's soul
to be the only object of his pious care.

The next day, during the divinity lesson which
Father Michael was giving to Mitia Smokovni-
kov's class, he narrated the incident of the forged
coupon, adding that the culprit had been one of
the pupils of the school.  "It was a very wicked
thing to do," he said; "but to deny the crime is
still worse.  If it is true that the sin has been com-
mitted by one of you, let the guilty one confess."
In saying this, Father Michael looked sharply at
Mitia Smokovnikov.  All the boys, following his
glance, turned also to Mitia, who blushed, and
felt extremely ill at ease, with large beads of
perspiration on his face.  Finally, he burst into
tears, and ran out of the classroom.  His mother,
noticing his trouble, found out the truth, ran at
once to the photographer's shop, paid over the
twelve roubles and fifty kopeks to Maria Vas-
silievna, and made her promise to deny the boy's
guilt.  She further implored Mitia to hide the
truth from everybody, and in any case to withhold
it from his father.

Accordingly, when Fedor Mihailovich had
heard of the incident in the divinity class, and his
son, questioned by him, had denied all accusations,
he called at once on the head of the school, told
him what had happened, expressed his indignation
at Father Michael's conduct, and said he would
not let matters remain as they were.

Father Michael was sent for, and immediately
fell into a hot dispute with Smokovnikov.

"A stupid woman first falsely accused my son,
then retracts her accusation, and you of course
could not hit on anything more sensible to do than
to slander an honest and truthful boy!"

"I did not slander him, and I must beg you not
to address me in such a way.  You forget what
is due to my cloth."

"Your cloth is of no consequence to me."

"Your perversity in matters of religion is
known to everybody in the town!" replied Father
Michael; and he was so transported with anger
that his long thin head quivered.

"Gentlemen! Father Michael!" exclaimed
the director of the school, trying to appease their
wrath.  But they did not listen to him.

"It is my duty as a priest to look after the
religious and moral education of our pupils."

"Oh, cease your pretence to be religious!
Oh, stop all this humbug of religion! As if I
did not know that you believe neither in God nor
Devil."

"I consider it beneath my dignity to talk to a
man like you," said Father Michael, very much
hurt by Smokovnikov's last words, the more so
because he knew they were true.

Michael Vedensky carried on his studies in the
academy for priests, and that is why, for a long
time past, he ceased to believe in what he con-
fessed to be his creed and in what he preached
from the pulpit; he only knew that men ought to
force themselves to believe in what he tried to
make himself believe.

Smokovnikov was not shocked by Father Mi-
chael's conduct; he only thought it illustrative of
the influence the Church was beginning to exercise
on society, and he told all his friends how his son
had been insulted by the priest.

Seeing not only young minds, but also the elder
generation, contaminated by atheistic tendencies,
Father Michael became more and more convinced
of the necessity of fighting those tendencies.  The
more he condemned the unbelief of Smokovnikov,
and those like him, the more confident he grew
in the firmness of his own faith, and the less he
felt the need of making sure of it, or of bringing
his life into harmony with it.  His faith, acknowl-
edged as such by all the world around him, be-
came Father Michael's very best weapon with
which to fight those who denied it.

The thoughts aroused in him by his conflict
with Smokovnikov, together with the annoyance
of being blamed by his chiefs in the school, made
him carry out the purpose he had entertained ever
since his wife's death--of taking monastic orders,
and of following the course carried out by some
of his fellow-pupils in the academy.  One of them
was already a bishop, another an archimandrite
and on the way to become a bishop.

At the end of the term Michael Vedensky gave
up his post in the school, took orders under the
name of Missael, and very soon got a post as
rector in a seminary in a town on the river Volga.



XIII

MEANWHILE the yard-porter Vassily was march-
ing on the open road down to the south.

He walked in daytime, and when night came
some policeman would get him shelter in a peas-
ant's cottage.  He was given bread everywhere,
and sometimes he was asked to sit down to the
evening meal.  In a village in the Orel district,
where he had stayed for the night, he heard that
a merchant who had hired the landowner's or-
chard for the season, was looking out for strong
and able men to serve as watchmen for the fruit-
crops.  Vassily was tired of tramping, and as he
had also no desire whatever to go back to his
native village, he went to the man who owned the
orchard, and got engaged as watchman for five
roubles a month.

Vassily found it very agreeable to live in his
orchard shed, and all the more so when the apples
and pears began to grow ripe, and when the men
from the barn supplied him every day with large
bundles of fresh straw from the threshing ma-
chine.  He used to lie the whole day long on
the fragrant straw, with fresh, delicately smell-
ing apples in heaps at his side, looking out in
every direction to prevent the village boys from
stealing fruit; and he used to whistle and sing
meanwhile, to amuse himself.  He knew no end
of songs, and had a fine voice.  When peasant
women and young girls came to ask for apples,
and to have a chat with him, Vassily gave them
larger or smaller apples according as he liked
their looks, and received eggs or money in re-
turn.  The rest of the time he had nothing to do,
but to lie on his back and get up for his meals in
the kitchen.  He had only one shirt left, one of
pink cotton, and that was in holes.  But he was
strongly built and enjoyed excellent health. 
When the kettle with black gruel was taken from
the stove and served to the working men, Vassily
used to eat enough for three, and filled the old
watchman on the estate with unceasing wonder. 
At nights Vassily never slept.  He whistled or
shouted from time to time to keep off thieves, and
his piercing, cat-like eyes saw clearly in the dark-
ness.

One night a company of young lads from the
village made their way stealthily to the orchard
to shake down apples from the trees.  Vassily,
coming noiselessly from behind, attacked them;
they tried to escape, but he took one of them
prisoner to his master.

Vassily's first shed stood at the farthest end of
the orchard, but after the pears had been picked
he had to remove to another shed only forty paces
away from the house of his master.  He liked
this new place very much.  The whole day long
he could see the young ladies and gentlemen en-
joying themselves; going out for drives in the
evenings and quite late at nights, playing the piano
or the violin, and singing and dancing.  He saw
the ladies sitting with the young students on the
window sills, engaged in animated conversation,
and then going in pairs to walk the dark avenue
of lime trees, lit up only by streaks of moon-
light.  He saw the servants running about with
food and drink, he saw the cooks, the stewards,
the laundresses, the gardeners, the coachmen, hard
at work to supply their masters with food and
drink and constant amusement.  Sometimes the
young people from the master's house came to
the shed, and Vassily offered them the choicest
apples, juicy and red.  The young ladies used to
take large bites out of the apples on the spot,
praising their taste, and spoke French to one an-
other--Vassily quite understood it was all about
him--and asked Vassily to sing for them.

Vassily felt the greatest admiration for his
master's mode of living, which reminded him of
what he had seen in Moscow; and he became more
and more convinced that the only thing that mat-
tered in life was money.  He thought and thought
how to get hold of a large sum of money.  He
remembered his former ways of making small
profits whenever he could, and came to the con-
clusion that that was altogether wrong.  Occa-
sional stealing is of no use, he thought.  He must
arrange a well-prepared plan, and after getting
all the information he wanted, carry out his pur-
pose so as to avoid detection.

After the feast of Nativity of the Blessed Vir-
gin Mary, the last crop of autumn apples was
gathered; the master was content with the results,
paid off Vassily, and gave him an extra sum as
reward for his faithful service.

Vassily put on his new jacket, and a new hat
--both were presents from his master's son--
but did not make his way homewards.  He hated
the very thought of the vulgar peasants' life.  He
went back to Moscow in company of some drunken
soldiers, who had been watchmen in the orchard
together with him.  On his arrival there he at
once resolved, under cover of night, to break into
the shop where he had been employed, and beaten,
and then turned out by the proprietor without be-
ing paid.  He knew the place well, and knew
where the money was locked up.  So he bade the
soldiers, who helped him, keep watch outside,  and
forcing the courtyard door entered the shop  and
took all the money he could lay his hands on. 
All this was done very cleverly, and no trace was
left of the burglary.  The money Vassily had
found in the shop amounted to 370 roubles.  He
gave a hundred roubles to his assistants, and with
the rest left for another town where he gave way
to dissipation in company of friends of both sexes. 
The police traced his movements, and when at
last he was arrested and put into prison he had
hardly anything left out of the money which he
had stolen.



XIV

IVAN MIRONOV had become a very clever, fear-
less and successful horse-thief.  Afimia, his wife,
who at first used to abuse him for his evil ways,
as she called it, was now quite content and felt
proud of her husband, who possessed a new sheep-
skin coat, while she also had a warm jacket and
a new fur cloak.

In the village and throughout the whole dis-
trict every one knew quite well that Ivan Mironov
was at the bottom of all the horse-stealing; but
nobody would give him away, being afraid of the
consequences.  Whenever suspicion fell on him,
he managed to clear his character.  Once during
the night he stole horses from the pasture ground
in the village Kolotovka.  He generally preferred
to steal horses from landowners or tradespeople. 
But this was a harder job, and when he had no
chance of success he did not mind robbing peasants
too.  In Kolotovka he drove off the horses with-
out making sure whose they were.  He did not
go himself to the spot, but sent a young and clever
fellow, Gerassim, to do the stealing for him.  The
peasants only got to know of the theft at dawn;
they rushed in all directions to hunt for the rob-
bers.  The horses, meanwhile, were hidden in a
ravine in the forest lands belonging to the state.

Ivan Mironov intended to leave them there till
the following night, and then to transport them
with the utmost haste a hundred miles away to a
man he knew.  He visited Gerassim in the forest,
to see how he was getting on, brought him a pie
and some vodka, and was returning home by a
side track in the forest where he hoped to meet
nobody.  But by ill-luck, he chanced on the keeper
of the forest, a retired soldier.

"I say! Have you been looking for mush-
rooms?" asked the soldier.

"There were none to be found," answered
Ivan Mironov, showing the basket of lime bark
he had taken with him in case he might want it.

"Yes, mushrooms are scarce this summer," said
the soldier.  He stood still for a moment, pon-
dered, and then went his way.  He clearly saw
that something was wrong.  Ivan Mironov had
no business whatever to take early morning walks
in that forest.  The soldier went back after a
while and looked round.  Suddenly he heard the
snorting of horses in the ravine.  He made his
way cautiously to the place whence the sounds
came.  The grass in the ravine was trodden
down, and the marks of horses' hoofs were clearly
to be seen.  A little further he saw Gerassim,
who was sitting and eating his meal, and the horses
tied to a tree.

The soldier ran to the village and brought back
the bailiff, a police officer, and two witnesses. 
They surrounded on three sides the spot where
Gerassim was sitting and seized the man.  He did
not deny anything; but, being drunk, told them at
once how Ivan Mironov had given him plenty of
drink, and induced him to steal the horses; he
also said that Ivan Mironov had promised to come
that night in order to take the horses away.  The
peasants left the horses and Gerassim in the ra-
vine, and hiding behind the trees prepared to lie in
ambush for Ivan Mironov.  When it grew dark,
they heard a whistle.  Gerassim answered it with
a similar sound.  The moment Ivan Mironov de-
scended the slope, the peasants surrounded him
and brought him back to the village.  The next
morning a crowd assembled in front of the bailiff's
cottage.  Ivan Mironov was brought out and sub-
jected to a close examination.  Stepan Pelageush-
kine, a tall, stooping man with long arms, an
aquiline nose, and a gloomy face was the first to
put questions to him.  Stepan had terminated his
military service, and was of a solitary turn of
mind.  When he had separated from his father,
and started his own home, he had his first experi-
ence of losing a horse.  After that he worked for
two years in the mines, and made money enough
to buy two horses.  These two had been stolen by
Ivan Mironov.

"Tell me where my horses are!" shouted
Stepan, pale with fury, alternately looking at the
ground and at Ivan Mironov's face.

Ivan Mironov denied his guilt.  Then Stepan
aimed so violent a blow at his face that he
smashed his nose and the blood spurted out.

"Tell the truth, I say, or I'll kill you!"

Ivan Mironov kept silent, trying to avoid the
blows by stooping.  Stepan hit him twice more
with his long arm.  Ivan Mironov remained
silent, turning his head backwards and forwards.

"Beat him, all of you!" cried the bailiff, and
the whole crowd rushed upon Ivan Mironov.  He
fell without a word to the ground, and then
shouted,--

"Devils, wild beasts, kill me if that's what you
want! I am not afraid of you!"

Stepan seized a stone out of those that had been
collected for the purpose, and with a heavy blow
smashed Ivan Mironov's head.



XV

IVAN MIRONOV'S murderers were brought to
trial, Stepan Pelageushkine among them.  He had
a heavier charge to answer than the others, all
the witnesses having stated that it was he who
had smashed Ivan Mironov's head with a stone. 
Stepan concealed nothing when in court.  He con-
tented himself with explaining that, having been
robbed of his two last horses, he had informed the
police.  Now it was comparatively easy at that
time to trace the horses with the help of profes-
sional thieves among the gipsies.  But the police
officer would not even permit him, and no search
had been ordered.

"Nothing else could be done with such a man. 
He has ruined us all."

"But why did not the others attack him.  It
was you alone who broke his head open."

"That is false.  We all fell upon him.  The
village agreed to kill him.  I only gave the final
stroke.  What is the use of inflicting unnecessary
sufferings on a man?"

The judges were astonished at Stepan's wonder-
ful coolness in narrating the story of his crime--
how the peasants fell upon Ivan Mironov, and
how he had given the final stroke.  Stepan act-
ually did not see anything particularly revolting in
this murder.  During his military service he had
been ordered on one occasion to shoot a soldier,
and, now with regard to Ivan Mironov, he saw
nothing loathsome in it.  "A man shot is a dead
man--that's all.  It was him to-day, it might be
me to-morrow," he thought.  Stepan was only
sentenced to one year's imprisonment, which was
a mild punishment for what he had done.  His
peasant's dress was taken away from him and put
in the prison stores, and he had a prison suit and
felt boots given to him instead.  Stepan had never
had much respect for the authorities, but now he
became quite convinced that all the chiefs, all the
fine folk, all except the Czar--who alone had pity
on the peasants and was just--all were robbers
who suck blood out of the people.  All he heard
from the deported convicts, and those sentenced to
hard labour, with whom he had made friends in
prisons, confirmed him in his views.  One man
had been sentenced to hard labour for having con-
victed his superiors of a theft; another for having
struck an official who had unjustly confiscated the
property of a peasant; a third because he forged
bank notes.  The well-to-do-people, the mer-
chants, might do whatever they chose and come
to no harm; but a poor peasant, for a trumpery
reason or for none at all, was sent to prison to
become food for vermin.

He had visits from his wife while in prison. 
Her life without him was miserable enough, when,
to make it worse, her cottage was destroyed by
fire.  She was completely ruined, and had to take
to begging with her children.  His wife's misery
embittered Stepan still more.  He got on very
badly with all the people in the prison; was rude
to every one; and one day he nearly killed the cook
with an axe, and therefore got an additional year
in prison.  In the course of that year he received
the news that his wife was dead, and that he had
no longer a home.


When Stepan had finished his time in prison,
he was taken to the prison stores, and his own
dress was taken down from the shelf and handed
to him.

"Where am I to go now?" he asked the prison
officer, putting on his old dress.

"Why, home."

"I have no home.  I shall have to go on the
road.  Robbery will not be a pleasant occupa-
tion."

"In that case you will soon be back here."

"I am not so sure of that."

And Stepan left the prison.  Nevertheless he
took the road to his own place.  He had nowhere
else to turn.

On his way he stopped for a night's rest in an
inn that had a public bar attached to it.  The inn
was kept by a fat man from the town, Vladimir,
and he knew Stepan.  He knew that Stepan had
been put into prison through ill luck, and did not
mind giving him shelter for the night.  He was
a rich man, and had persuaded his neighbour's
wife to leave her husband and come to live with
him.  She lived in his house as his wife, and
helped him in his business as well.

Stepan knew all about the innkeeper's affairs--
how he had wronged the peasant, and how the
woman who was living with him had left her hus-
band.  He saw her now sitting at the table in a
rich dress, and looking very hot as she drank her
tea.  With great condescension she asked Stepan
to have tea with her.  No other travellers were
stopping in the inn that night.  Stepan was given
a place in the kitchen where he might sleep.  Ma-
trena--that was the woman's name--cleared the
table and went to her room.  Stepan went to lie
down on the large stove in the kitchen, but he
could not sleep, and the wood splinters put on the
stove to dry were crackling under him, as he tossed
from side to side.  He could not help thinking of
his host's fat paunch protruding under the belt
of his shirt, which had lost its colour from having
been washed ever so many times.  Would not it
be a good thing to make a good clean incision in
that paunch.  And that woman, too, he thought.

One moment he would say to himself, "I had
better go from here to-morrow, bother them all!"
But then again Ivan Mironov came back to his
mind, and he went on thinking of the innkeeper's
paunch and Matrena's white throat bathed in per-
spiration.  "Kill I must, and it must be both!"

He heard the cock crow for the second time.

"I must do it at once, or dawn will be here "  He
had seen in the evening before he went to bed a
knife and an axe.  He crawled down from the
stove, took the knife and axe, and went out of
the kitchen door.  At that very moment he heard
the lock of the entrance door open.  The inn-
keeper was going out of the house to the court-
yard.  It all turned out contrary to what Stepan
desired.  He had no opportunity of using the
knife; he just swung the axe and split the innkeep-
er's head in two.  The man tumbled down on the
threshold of the door, then on the ground.

Stepan stepped into the bedroom.  Matrena
jumped out of bed, and remained standing by its
side.  With the same axe Stepan killed her also.

Then he lighted the candle, took the money out
of the desk, and left the house.



XVI

IN a small district town, some distance away from
the other buildings, an old man, a former official,
who had taken to drink, lived in his own house
with his two daughters and his son-in-law.  The
married daughter was also addicted to drink and
led a bad life, and it was the elder daughter, the
widow Maria Semenovna, a wrinkled woman of
fifty, who supported the whole family.  She had
a pension of two hundred and fifty roubles a year,
and the family lived on this.  Maria Semenovna
did all the work in the house, looked after the
drunken old father, who was very weak, attended
to her sister's child, and managed all the cooking
and the washing of the family.  And, as is al-
ways the case, whatever there was to do, she was
expected to do it, and was, moreover, continually
scolded by all the three people in the house; her
brother-in-law used even to beat her when he was
drunk.  She bore it all patiently, and as is also
always the case, the more work she had to face,
the quicker she managed to get through it.  She
helped the poor, sacrificing her own wants; she
gave them her clothes, and was a ministering
angel to the sick.

Once the lame, crippled village tailor was work-
ing in Maria Semenovna's house.  He had to
mend her old father's coat, and to mend and re-
pair Maria Semenovna's fur-jacket for her to wear
in winter when she went to market.

The lame tailor was a clever man, and a keen
observer:  he had seen many different people ow-
ing to his profession, and was fond of reflection,
condemned as he was to a sedentary life.

Having worked a week at Maria Semenovna's,
he wondered greatly about her life.  One day she
came to the kitchen, where he was sitting with his
work, to wash a towel, and began to ask him how
he was getting on.  He told her of the wrong he
had suffered from his brother, and how he now
lived on his own allotment of land, separated from
that of his brother.

"I thought I should have been better off that
way," he said.  "But I am now just as poor as
before."

"It is much better never to change, but to take
life as it comes," said Maria Semenovna.  "Take
life as it comes," she repeated.

"Why, I wonder at you, Maria Semenovna,"
said the lame tailor.  "You alone do the work,
and you are so good to everybody.  But they
don't repay you in kind, I see."

Maria Semenovna did not utter a word in an-
swer.

"I dare say you have found out in books that
we are rewarded in heaven for the good we do
here."

"We don't know that.  But we must try to do
the best we can."

"Is it said so in books?"

"In books as well," she said, and read to him
the Sermon on the Mount.  The tailor was much
impressed.  When he had been paid for his job
and gone home, he did not cease to think about
Maria Semenovna, both what she had said and
what she had read to him.



XVII

PETER NIKOLAEVICH SVENTIZKY'S views of the
peasantry had now changed for the worse, and the
peasants had an equally bad opinion of him.  In
the course of a single year they felled twenty-seven
oaks in his forest, and burnt a barn which had not
been insured.  Peter Nikolaevich came to the con-
clusion that there was no getting on with the
people around him.

At that very time the landowner, Liventsov,
was trying to find a manager for his estate, and
the Marshal of the Nobility recommended Peter
Nikolaevich as the ablest man in the district in
the management of land.  The estate owned by
Liventsov was an extremely large one, but there
was no revenue to be got out of it, as the peasants
appropriated all its wealth to their own profit. 
Peter Nikolaevich undertook to bring everything
into order; rented out his own land to somebody
else; and settled with his wife on the Liventsov
estate, in a distant province on the river Volga.

Peter Nikolaevich was always fond of order,
and wanted things to be regulated by law; and
now he felt less able of allowing those raw and
rude peasants to take possession, quite illegally
too, of property that did not belong to them.  He
was glad of the opportunity of giving them a good
lesson, and set seriously to work at once.  One
peasant was sent to prison for stealing wood; to
another he gave a thrashing for not having made
way for him on the road with his cart, and for not
having lifted his cap to salute him.  As to the
pasture ground which was a subject of dispute,
and was considered by the peasants as their prop-
erty, Peter Nikolaevich informed the peasants
that any of their cattle grazing on it would be
driven away by him.

The spring came and the peasants, just as they
had done in previous years, drove their cattle on
to the meadows belonging to the landowner. 
Peter Nikolaevich called some of the men work-
ing on the estate and ordered them to drive the
cattle into his yard.  The peasants were working
in the fields, and, disregarding the screaming of
the women, Peter Nikolaevich's men succeeded in
driving in the cattle.  When they came home the
peasants went in a crowd to the cattle-yard on the
estate, and asked for their cattle.  Peter Nikolae-
vich came out to talk to them with a gun slung on
his shoulder; he had just returned from a ride of
inspection.  He told them that he would not let
them have their cattle unless they paid a fine of
fifty kopeks for each of the horned cattle, and
twenty kopeks for each sheep.  The peasants
loudly declared that the pasture ground was their
property, because their fathers and grandfathers
had used it, and protested that he had no right
whatever to lay hand on their cattle.

"Give back our cattle, or you will regret it,"
said an old man coming up to Peter Nikolaevich.

"How shall I regret it?" cried Peter Niko-
laevich, turning pale, and coming close to the old
man.

"Give them back, you villain, and don't pro-
voke us."

"What?" cried Peter Nikolaevich, and slapped
the old man in the face.

"You dare to strike me? Come along, you
fellows, let us take back our cattle by force."

The crowd drew close to him.  Peter Niko-
laevich tried to push his way, through them, but
the peasants resisted him.  Again he tried force.

His gun, accidentally discharged in the melee,
killed one of the peasants.  Instantly the fight
began.  Peter Nikolaevich was trodden down,
and five minutes later his mutilated body was
dragged into the ravine.

The murderers were tried by martial law, and
two of them sentenced to the gallows.



XVIII

IN the village where the lame tailor lived, in the
Zemliansk district of the Voronesh province, five
rich peasants hired from the landowner a hundred
and five acres of rich arable land, black as tar, and
let it out on lease to the rest of the peasants at
fifteen to eighteen roubles an acre.  Not one acre
was given under twelve roubles.  They got a very
profitable return, and the five acres which were
left to each of their company practically cost them
nothing.  One of the five peasants died, and the
lame tailor received an offer to take his place.

When they began to divide the land, the tailor
gave up drinking vodka, and, being consulted as
to how much land was to be divided, and to whom
it should be given, he proposed to give allotments
to all on equal terms, not taking from the tenants
more than was due for each piece of land out of
the sum paid to the landowner.

"Why so?"

"We are no heathens, I should think," he said.
"It is all very well for the masters to be unfair,
but we are true Christians.  We must do as God
bids.  Such is the law of Christ."

"Where have you got that law from?

"It is in the Book, in the Gospels. just come
to me on Sunday.  I will read you a few passages,
and we will have a talk afterwards."

They did not all come to him on Sunday, but
three came, and he began reading to them.

He read five chapters of St. Matthew's Gospel,
and they talked.  One man only, Ivan Chouev,
accepted the lesson and carried it out completely,
following the rule of Christ in everything from
that day.  His family did the same.  Out of the
arable land he took only what was his due, and
refused to take more.

The lame tailor and Ivan had people calling on
them, and some of these people began to grasp
the meaning of the Gospels, and in consequence
gave up smoking, drinking, swearing, and using
bad language and tried to help one another. 
They also ceased to go to church, and took their
ikons to the village priest, saying they did not
want them any more.  The priest was frightened,
and reported what had occurred to the bishop. 
The bishop was at a loss what to do.  At last
he resolved to send the archimandrite Missael to
the village, the one who had formerly been Mitia
Smokovnikov's teacher of religion.



XIX

ASKING Father Missael on his arrival to take a
seat, the bishop told him what had happened in
his diocese.

"It all comes from weakness of spirit and from
ignorance.  You are a learned man, and I rely on
you.  Go to the village, call the parishioners to-
gether, and convince them of their error."

"If your Grace bids me go, and you give me
your blessing, I will do my best," said Father
Missael.  He was very pleased with the task en-
trusted to him.  Every opportunity he could find
to demonstrate the firmness of his faith was a
boon to him.  In trying to convince others he was
chiefly intent on persuading himself that he was
really a firm believer.

"Do your best.  I am greatly distressed about
my flock," said the bishop, leisurely taking a cup
with his white plump hands from the servant who
brought in the tea.

"Why is there only one kind of jam?  Bring
another," he said to the servant.  "I am greatly
distressed," he went on, turning to Father Mis-
sael.

Missael earnestly desired to prove his zeal;
but, being a man of small means, he asked to be
paid for the expenses of his journey; and being
afraid of the rough people who might be ill-dis-
posed towards him, he also asked the bishop to get
him an order from the governor of the province,
so that the local police might help him in case of
need.  The bishop complied with his wishes, and
Missael got his things ready with the help of his
servant and his cook.  They furnished him with
a case full of wine, and a basket with the victuals
he might need in going to such a lonely place. 
Fully provided with all he wanted, he started for
the village to which he was commissioned.  He
was pleasantly conscious of the importance of his
mission.  All his doubts as to his own faith passed
away, and he was now fully convinced of its real-
ity.

His thoughts, far from being concerned with
the real foundation of his creed--this was ac-
cepted as an axiom--were occupied with the argu-
ments used against the forms of worship.



XX

THE village priest and his wife received Father
Missael with great honours, and the next day after
he had arrived the parishioners were invited to
assemble in the church.  Missael in a new silk
cassock, with a large cross on his chest, and his
long hair carefully combed, ascended the pulpit;
the priest stood at his side, the deacons and the
choir at a little distance behind him, and the side
entrances were guarded by the police.  The dis-
senters also came in their dirty sheepskin coats.

After the service Missael delivered a sermon,
admonishing the dissenters to return to the bosom
of their mother, the Church, threatening them
with the torments of hell, and promising full for-
giveness to those who would repent.

The dissenters kept silent at first.  Then, be-
ing asked questions, they gave answers.  To the
question why they dissented, they said that their
chief reason was the fact that the Church wor-
shipped gods made of wood, which, far from be-
ing ordained, were condemned by the Scriptures.

When asked by Missael whether they actually
considered the holy ikons to be mere planks of
wood, Chouev answered,--

"Just look at the back of any ikon you choose
and you will see what they are made of."

When asked why they turned against the priests,
their answer was that the Scripture says:  "As you
have received it without fee, so you must give it
to the others; whereas the priests require pay-
ment for the grace they bestow by the sacraments."
To all attempts which Missael made to oppose
them by arguments founded on Holy Writ, the
tailor and Ivan Chouev gave calm but very firm
answers, contradicting his assertions by appeal to
the Scriptures, which they knew uncommonly well.

Missael got angry and threatened them with
persecution by the authorities.  Their answer
was:  It is said, I have been persecuted and so will
you be.

The discussion came to nothing, and all would
have ended well if Missael had not preached the
next day at mass, denouncing the wicked seducers
of the faithful and saying that they deserved the
worst punishment.  Coming out of the church, the
crowd of peasants began to consult whether it
would not be well to give the infidels a good lesson
for disturbing the minds of the community.  The
same day, just when Missael was enjoying some
salmon and gangfish, dining at the village priest's
in company with the inspector, a violent brawl
arose in the village.  The peasants came in a
crowd to Chouev's cottage, and waited for the
dissenters to come out in order to give them a
thrashing.

The dissenters assembled in the cottage num-
bered about twenty men and women.  Missael's
sermon and the attitude of the orthodox peasants,
together with their threats, aroused in the mind
of the dissenters angry feelings, to which they had
before been strangers.  It was near evening, the
women had to go and milk the cows, and the
peasants were still standing and waiting at the
door.

A boy who stepped out of the door was beaten
and driven back into the house.  The people
within began consulting what was to be done, and
could come to no agreement.  The tailor said,
"We must bear whatever is done to us, and not
resist."  Chouev replied that if they decided on
that course they would, all of them, be beaten to
death.  In consequence, he seized a poker and
went out of the house.  "Come!" he shouted,
let us follow the law of Moses!" And, falling
upon the peasants, he knocked out one man's eye,
and in the meanwhile all those who had been in
his house contrived to get out and make their way
home.

Chouev was thrown into prison and charged
with sedition and blasphemy.



XXI

Two years previous to those events a strong and
handsome young girl of an eastern type, Katia
Turchaninova, came from the Don military settle-
ments to St. Petersburg to study in the university
college for women.  In that town she met a stu-
dent, Turin, the son of a district governor in the
Simbirsk province, and fell in love with him.  But
her love was not of the ordinary type, and she
had no desire to become his wife and the mother
of his children.  He was a dear comrade to her,
and their chief bond of union was a feeling of re-
volt they had in common, as well as the hatred
they bore, not only to the existing forms of gov-
ernment, but to all those who represented that
government.  They had also in common the sense
that they both excelled their enemies in culture,
in brains, as well as in morals.  Katia Turchan-
inova was a gifted girl, possessed of a good mem-
ory, by means of which she easily mastered the lec-
tures she attended.  She was successful in her ex-
aminations, and, apart from that, read all the new-
est books.  She was certain that her vocation was
not to bear and rear children, and even looked on
such a task with disgust and contempt.  She
thought herself chosen by destiny to destroy the
present government, which was fettering the best
abilities of the nation, and to reveal to the people
a higher standard of life, inculcated by the latest
writers of other countries.  She was handsome, a
little inclined to stoutness:  she had a good com-
plexion, shining black eyes, abundant black hair. 
She inspired the men she knew with feelings she
neither wished nor had time to share, busy as she
was with propaganda work, which consisted chiefly
in mere talking.  She was not displeased, how-
ever, to inspire these feelings; and, without dress-
ing too smartly, did not neglect her appearance. 
She liked to be admired, as it gave her opportuni-
ties of showing how little she prized what was
valued so highly by other women.

In her views concerning the method of fighting
the government she went further than the majority
of her comrades, and than her friend Turin; all
means, she taught, were justified in such a struggle,
not excluding murder.  And yet, with all her revo-
lutionary ideas, Katia Turchaninova was in her
soul a very kind girl, ready to sacrifice herself for
the welfare and the happiness of other people,
and sincerely pleased when she could do a kind-
ness to anybody, a child, an old person, or an ani-
mal.

She went in the summer to stay with a friend, a
schoolmistress in a small town on the river Volga. 
Turin lived near that town, on his father's estate. 
He often came to see the two girls; they gave each
other books to read, and had long discussions,
expressing their common indignation with the state
of affairs in the country.  The district doctor, a
friend of theirs, used also to join them on many oc-
casions.

The estate of the Turins was situated in the
neighbourhood of the Liventsov estate, the one
that was entrusted to the management of Peter
Nikolaevich Sventizky.  Soon after Peter Niko-
laevich had settled there, and begun to en-
force order, young Turin, having observed an in-
dependent tendency in the peasants on the Livent-
sov estate, as well as their determination to up-
hold their rights, became interested in them.  He
came often to the village to talk with the men,
and developed his socialistic theories, insisting par-
ticularly on the nationalisation of the land.

After Peter Nikolaevich had been murdered,
and the murderers sent to trial, the revolutionary
group of the small town boiled over with indigna-
tion, and did not shrink from openly expressing
it. The fact of Turin's visits to the village and
his propaganda work among the students, became
known to the authorities during the trial.  A
search was made in his house; and, as the police
found a few revolutionary leaflets among his ef-
fects, he was arrested and transferred to prison
in St. Petersburg.

Katia Turchaninova followed him to the metrop-
olis, and went to visit him in prison.  She was
not admitted on the day she came, and was told
to come on the day fixed by regulations for visits
to the prisoners.  When that day arrived, and
she was finally allowed to see him, she had to talk
to him through two gratings separating the pris-
oner from his visitor.  This visit increased her in-
dignation against the authorities.  And her feel-
ings become all the more revolutionary after a
visit she paid to the office of a gendarme officer
who had to deal with the Turin case.  The offi-
cer, a handsome man, seemed obviously disposed
to grant her exceptional favours in visiting the
prisoner, if she would allow him to make love to
her.  Disgusted with him, she appealed to the
chief of police.  He pretended--just as the officer
did when talking officially to her--to be power-
less himself, and to depend entirely on orders
coming from the minister of state.  She sent a
petition to the minister asking for an interview,
which was refused.

Then she resolved to do a desperate thing and
bought a revolver.



XXII

THE minister was receiving petitioners at the usual
hour appointed for the reception.  He had talked
successively to three of them, and now a pretty
young woman with black eyes, who was holding
a petition in her left hand, approached.  The
minister's eyes gleamed when he saw how attract-
ive the petitioner was, but recollecting his high po-
sition he put on a serious face.

"What do you want?" he asked, coming down
to where she stood.  Without answering his ques-
tion the young woman quickly drew a revolver
from under her cloak and aiming it at the min-
ister's chest fired--but missed him.

The minister rushed at her, trying to seize her
hand, but she escaped, and taking a step back, fired
a second time.  The minister ran out of the room. 
The woman was immediately seized.  She was
trembling violently, and could not utter a single
word; after a while she suddenly burst into a hys-
terical laugh.  The minister was not even wounded.

That woman was Katia Turchaninova.  She
was put into the prison of preliminary detention. 
The minister received congratulations and marks
of sympathy from the highest quarters, and even
from the emperor himself, who appointed a com-
mission to investigate the plot that had led to the
attempted assassination.  As a matter of fact
there was no plot whatever, but the police officials
and the detectives set to work with the utmost zeal
to discover all the threads of the non-existing con-
spiracy.  They did everything to deserve the fees
they were paid; they got up in the small hours of
the morning, searched one house after another,
took copies of papers and of books they found,
read diaries, personal letters, made extracts from
them on the very best notepaper and in beautiful
handwriting, interrogated Katia Turchaninova
ever so many times, and confronted her with all
those whom they suspected of conspiracy, in order
to extort from her the names of her accomplices.

The minister, a good-natured man at  heart, was
sincerely sorry for the pretty girl.  But he said
to himself that he was bound to consider his high
state duties imposed upon him, even though they
did not imply much work and trouble.  So, when
his former colleague, a chamberlain and a friend
of the Turins, met him at a court ball and tried to
rouse his pity for Turin and the girl Turchani-
nova, he shrugged his shoulders, stretching the red
ribbon on his white waistcoat, and said:  "Je ne
demanderais pas mieux que de relacher cette pau-
vre fillette, mais vous savez le devoir."  And in
the meantime Katia Turchaninova was kept in
prison.  She was at times in a quiet mood, com-
municated with her fellow-prisoners by knocking
on the walls, and read the books that were sent
to her.  But then came days when she had fits of
desperate fury, knocking with her fists against
the wall, screaming and laughing like a mad-
woman.



XXIII

ONE day Maria Semenovna came home from the
treasurer's office, where she had received her pen-
sion.  On her way she met a schoolmaster, a
friend of hers.

"Good day, Maria Semenovna! Have you re-
ceived your money?" the schoolmaster asked, in
a loud voice from the other side of the street.

"I have," answered Maria Semenovna.  "But
it was not much; just enough to fill the holes."

"Oh, there must be some tidy pickings out
of such a lot of money," said the schoolmaster,
and passed on, after having said good-bye.

"Good-bye," said Maria Semenovna.  While
she was looking at her friend, she met a tall man
face to face, who had very long arms and a stern
look in his eyes.  Coming to her house, she was
very startled on again seeing the same man with
the long arms, who had evidently followed her. 
He remained standing another moment after she
had gone in, then turned and walked away.

Maria Semenovna felt somewhat frightened at
first.  But when she had entered the house, and
had given her father and her nephew Fedia the
presents she had brought for them, and she had
patted the dog Treasure, who whined with joy,
she forgot her fears.  She gave the money to her
father and began to work, as there was always
plenty for her to do.

The man she met face to face was Stepan.

After he had killed the innkeeper, he did not
return to town.  Strange to say, he was not sorry
to have committed that murder.  His mind went
back to the murdered man over and  over again
during the following day; and he liked the recol-
lection of having done the thing so skilfully, so
cleverly, that nobody-would ever discover it, and
he would not therefore be prevented from mur-
dering other people in the same way.  Sitting in
the public-house and having his tea, he looked at
the people around him with the same thought how
he should murder them.  In the evening he called
at a carter's, a man from his village, to spend the
night at his house.  The carter was not in.  He
said he would wait for him, and in the meanwhile
began talking to the carter's wife.  But when she
moved to the stove, with her back turned to him,
the idea entered his mind to kill her.  He mar-
velled at himself at first, and shook his head; but
the next moment he seized the knife he had hid-
den in his boot, knocked the woman down on the
floor, and cut her throat.  When the children be-
gan to scream, he killed them also and went away. 
He did not look out for another place to spend
the night, but at once left the town.  In a village
some distance away he went to the inn  and slept
there.  The next day he returned to the district
town, and there he overheard in the street Maria
Semenovna's talk with the schoolmaster.  Her
look frightened him, but yet he made up his mind
to creep into her house, and rob her of the money
she had received.  When the night came he broke
the lock and entered the house.  The first person
who heard his steps was the younger daughter,
the married one.  She screamed.  Stepan stabbed
her immediately with his knife.  Her husband
woke up and fell upon Stepan, seized him by his
throat, and struggled with him desperately.  But
Stepan was the stronger man and overpowered
him.  After murdering him, Stepan, excited by
the long fight, stepped into the next room be-
hind a partition.  That was Maria Semenovna's
bedroom.  She rose in her bed, looked at
Stepan with her mild frightened eyes, and crossed
herself.

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

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

She did not answer.

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

"How can you . . ." she said.

"You will see how."

Stepan came close to her, in order to seize her
hands and prevent her struggling with him, but
she did not even try to lift her arms or offer any
resistance; she pressed her hands to her chest, and
sighed heavily.

"Oh, what a great sin!" she cried.  "How
can you! Have mercy on yourself.  To destroy
somebody's soul . . . and worse, your
own! . . ."

Stepan could not stand her voice any longer, and
drew his knife sharply across her throat.  "Stop
that talk!" he said.  She fell back with a hoarse
cry, and the pillow was stained with blood.  He
turned away, and went round the rooms in order
to collect all he thought worth taking.  Having
made a bundle of the most valuable things, he
lighted a cigarette, sat down for a while, brushed
his clothes, and left the house.  He thought this
murder would not matter to him more than those
he had committed before; but before he got a
night's lodging, he felt suddenly so exhausted that
he could not walk any farther.  He stepped down
into the gutter and remained lying there the rest
of the night, and the next day and the next night.




PART SECOND



I

THE whole time he was lying in the gutter Stepan
saw continually before his eyes the thin, kindly,
and frightened face of Maria Semenovna, and
seemed to hear her voice.  "How can you?" she
went on saying in his imagination, with her pe-
culiar lisping voice.  Stepan saw over again and
over again before him all he had done to her.  In
horror he shut his eyes, and shook his hairy head,
to drive away these thoughts and recollections. 
For a moment he would get rid of them, but in
their place horrid black faces with red eyes ap-
peared and frightened him continuously.  They
grinned at him, and kept repeating, "Now you
have done away with her you must do away with
yourself, or we will not leave you alone "  He
opened his eyes, and again he saw HER and heard
her voice; and felt an immense pity for her and
a deep horror and disgust with himself.  Once
more he shut his eyes, and the black faces reap-
peared.  Towards the evening of the next day
he rose and went, with hardly any strength left,
to a public-house.  There he ordered a drink, and
repeated his demands over and over again, but
no quantity of liquor could make him intoxicated. 
He was sitting at a table, and swallowed silently
one glass after another.

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

"I am the man who murdered all the Dobrot-
vorov people last night," he answered.

He was arrested, bound with ropes, and brought
to the nearest police-station; the next day he was
transferred to the prison in the town.  The in-
spector of the prison recognised him as an old in-
mate, and a very turbulent one; and, hearing that
he had now become a real criminal, accosted him
very harshly.

"You had better be quiet here," he said in a
hoarse voice, frowning, and protruding his lower
jaw.  "The moment you don't behave, I'll flog
you to death! Don't try to escape--I will see
to that!"

"I have no desire to escape," said Stepan, drop-
ping his eyes.  "I surrendered of my own free
will."

"Shut up! You must look straight into your
superior's eyes when you talk to him," cried the
inspector, and struck Stepan with his fist under
the jaw.

At that moment Stepan again saw the murdered
woman before him, and heard her voice; he did
not pay attention, therefore, to the inspector's
words.

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

"Be off! Don't pretend you don't hear."

The inspector expected Stepan to be violent, to
talk to the other prisoners, to make attempts to
escape from prison.  But nothing of the kind ever
happened.  Whenever the guard or the inspector
himself looked into his cell through the hole in
the door, they saw Stepan sitting on a bag filled
with straw, holding his head with his hands and
whispering to himself.  On being brought before
the examining magistrate charged with the inquiry
into his case, he did not behave like an ordinary
convict.  He was very absent-minded, hardly list-
ening to the questions; but when he heard what
was asked, he answered truthfully, causing the
utmost perplexity to the magistrate, who, accus-
tomed as he was to the necessity of being very
clever and very cunning with convicts, felt a
strange sensation just as if he were lifting up his
foot to ascend a step and found none.  Stepan
told him the story of all his murders; and did it
frowning, with a set look, in a quiet, businesslike
voice, trying to recollect all the circumstances of
his crimes.  "He stepped out of the house," said
Stepan, telling the tale of his first murder, "and
stood barefooted at the door; I hit him, and he
just groaned; I went to his wife, . . ."  And
so on.

One day the magistrate, visiting the prison cells,
asked Stepan whether there was anything he had
to complain of, or whether he had any wishes that
might be granted him.  Stepan said he had no
wishes whatever, and had nothing to complain of
the way he was treated in prison.  The magis-
trate, on leaving him, took a few steps in the foul
passage, then stopped and asked the governor who
had accompanied him in his visit how this pris-
oner was behaving.

"I simply wonder at him," said the governor,
who was very pleased with Stepan, and spoke
kindly of him.  "He has now been with us about
two months, and could be held up as a model of
good behaviour.  But I am afraid he is plotting
some mischief.  He is a daring man, and excep-
tionally strong."



II

DURING the first month in prison Stepan suffered
from the same agonising vision.  He saw the
grey wall of his cell, he heard the sounds of the
prison; the noise of the cell below him, where a
number of convicts were confined together; the
striking of the prison clock; the steps of the sentry
in the passage; but at the same time he saw HER
with that kindly face which conquered his heart
the very first time he met her in the street, with
that thin, strongly-marked neck, and he heard her
soft, lisping, pathetic voice:  "To destroy some-
body's soul . . . and, worst of all, your own.
.  . .  How can you? . . ."

After a while her voice would die away, and
then black faces would appear.  They would ap-
pear whether he had his eyes open or shut.  With
his closed eyes he saw them more distinctly.  When
he opened his eyes they vanished for a moment,
melting away into the walls and the door; but
after a while they reappeared and surrounded him
from three sides, grinning at him and saying over
and over:  "Make an end! Make an end! Hang
yourself!  Set yourself on fire!" Stepan shook
all over when  he heard that, and tried to say all
the prayers he knew:  "Our Lady" or "Our
Father "  At first this seemed to help.  In say-
ing his prayers he began to recollect his  whole
life; his father, his mother, the village, the dog
"Wolf," the old grandfather lying on the stove,
the bench on which the children used to play; then
the girls in the village with their songs, his horses
and how they had been stolen, and how the thief
was caught and how he killed him with a stone. 
He recollected also the first prison he was in and
his leaving it, and the fat innkeeper, the carter's
wife and the children.  Then again SHE came to
his mind and again he was terrified.  Throwing
his prison overcoat off his shoulders, he jumped
out of bed, and, like a wild animal in a cage, be-
gan pacing up and down his tiny cell, hastily turn-
ing round when he had reached the damp walls. 
Once more he tried to pray, but it was of no use
now.

The autumn came with its long nights.  One
evening when the wind whistled and howled in the
pipes, Stepan, after he had paced up and down his
cell for a long time, sat down on his bed.  He felt
he could not struggle any more; the black demons
had overpowered him, and he had to submit.  For
some time he had been looking at the funnel of the
oven.  If he could fix on the knob of its lid a loop
made of thin shreds of narrow linen straps it
would hold. . . .  But he would have to man-
age it very cleverly.  He  set to work, and spent
two days in making straps out of the linen bag on
which he slept.  When the guard came into the
cell he covered the bed with his overcoat.  He
tied the straps with big knots and made them
double, in order that they might be strong enough
to hold his weight.  During these preparations he
was free from tormenting visions.  When the
straps were ready he made a slip-knot out of them,
and put it round his neck, stood up in his bed, and
hanged himself.  But at the very moment that his
tongue began to protrude the straps got loose, and
he fell down.  The guard rushed in at the noise. 
The doctor was called in, Stepan was brought to
the infirmary.  The next day he recovered, and
was removed from the infirmary, no more to soli-
tary confinement, but to share the common cell
with other prisoners.

In the common cell he lived in the company of
twenty men, but felt as if he were quite alone. 
He did not notice the presence of the rest; did not
speak to anybody, and was tormented by the old
agony.  He felt it most of all when the men were
sleeping and he alone could not get one moment
of sleep.  Continually he saw HER before his eyes,
heard her voice, and then again the black devils
with their horrible eyes came and tortured him in
the usual way.

He again tried to say his prayers, but, just as
before, it did not help him.  One day when, after
his prayers, she was again before his eyes, he be-
gan to implore her dear soul to forgive him his sin,
and release him.  Towards morning, when he fell
down quite exhausted on his crushed linen bag, he
fell asleep at once, and in his dream she came to
him with her thin, wrinkled, and severed neck. 
"Will you forgive me?" he asked.  She looked
at him with her mild eyes and did not answer. 
"Will you forgive me?"  And so he asked her
three times.  But she did not say a word, and he
awoke.  From that time onwards he suffered less,
and seemed to come to his senses, looked around
him, and began for the first time to talk to the
other men in the cell.



III

STEPAN'S cell was shared among others by the
former yard-porter, Vassily, who had been sen-
tenced to deportation for robbery, and by Chouev,
sentenced also to deportation.  Vassily sang songs
the whole day long with his fine voice, or told his
adventures to the other men in the cell.  Chouev
was working at something all day, mending his
clothes, or reading the Gospel and the Psalter.

Stepan asked him why he was put into prison,
and Chouev answered that he was being perse-
cuted because of his true Christian faith by the
priests, who were all of them hypocrites and hated
those who followed the law of Christ.  Stepan
asked what that true law was, and Chouev made
clear to him that the true law consists in not wor-
shipping gods made with hands, but worshipping
the spirit and the truth.  He told him how he had
learnt the truth from the lame tailor at the time
when they were dividing the land.

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

" The Scriptures give an answer to that," said
Chouev, and read aloud to him Matthew xxv.
31:--


"When the Son of Man shall come in His
glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall
He sit upon the throne of His glory:  and before
Him shall be gathered all nations:  and He shall
separate them one from another, as a shepherd
divideth His sheep from the goats:  and He shall
set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on
the left.  Then shall the King say unto them on
His right hand, Come, ye blessed of My Father,
inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the
foundation of the world:  for I was an hungred,
and ye gave Me meat:  I was thirsty, and ye gave
Me drink:  I was a stranger, and ye took Me in:
naked, and ye clothed Me:  I was sick, and ye
visited Me:  I was in prison, and ye came unto Me. 
Then shall the righteous answer Him, saying,
Lord, when saw we Thee an hungred, and fed
Thee? or thirsty, and gave Thee drink? When
saw we Thee a stranger, and took Thee in? or
naked, and clothed Thee? Or when saw we Thee
sick, or in prison, and came unto Thee? And the
King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say
unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of
the least of these My brethren, ye have done it
unto Me.  Then shall He say also unto them on
the left hand, Depart from Me, ye cursed, into
everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his an-
gels:  for I was an hungred, and ye gave Me no
meat:  I was thirsty, and ye gave Me no drink:  I
was a stranger and ye took Me not in:  naked, and
ye clothed Me not; sick, and in prison, and ye
visited Me not.  Then shall they also answer
Him, saying, Lord, when saw we Thee an hun-
gred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick,
or in prison, and did not minister unto Thee?
Then shall He answer them, saying, Verily I say
unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the
least of these, ye did it not to Me.  And these
shall go away into everlasting punishment:  but the
righteous into life eternal."


Vassily, who was sitting on the floor at Chouev's
side, and was listening to his reading the Gospel,
nodded his handsome head  in approval.  "True,"
he said in a resolute tone.  "Go, you cursed vil-
lains, into everlasting punishment, since you did
not give food to the hungry, but swallowed it all
yourself.  Serves them right! I have read the
holy Nikodim's writings," he added, showing off
his erudition.

"And will they never be pardoned?" asked
Stepan, who had listened silently, with his hairy
head bent low down.

"Wait a moment, and be silent," said Chouev
to Vassily, who went on talking about the rich
who had not given meat to the stranger, nor vis-
ited him in the prison.

"Wait, I say!" said Chouev, again turning
over the leaves of the Gospel.  Having found
what he was looking for, Chouev smoothed the
page with his large and strong hand, which had
become exceedingly white in prison:


"And there  were also two other malefactors,
led with Him"--it means with Christ--"to be
put to death.  And when they were come to the
place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified
Him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand,
and the other on the left.  Then said Jesus,--
'Father, forgive them; for they know not what
they do.' And the people stood beholding.  And
the rulers also with them derided Him, saying,--
'He saved others; let Him save Himself if He
be Christ, the chosen of God.' And the soldiers
also mocked Him, coming to Him, and offering
Him vinegar, and saying, 'If Thou be the King of
the Jews save Thyself.' And a superscription
also was written over Him in letters of Greek,
and Latin, and Hebrew, 'This is the King of the
Jews.' And one of the malefactors which were
hanged railed on Him, saying, 'If thou be Christ,
save Thyself and us.' But the other answering
rebuked Him, saying, 'Dost not thou fear God,
seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And
we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of
our deeds:  but this man hath done nothing amiss.'
And he said unto Jesus, 'Lord, remember me
when Thou comest into Thy kingdom.' And Je-
sus said unto him, 'Verily I say unto thee, to-day
shalt thou be with Me in paradise.'"


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

Now he knew what the true faith was.  Those
only will be saved who have given food and drink
to the poor and visited the prisoners; those who
have not done it, go to hell.  And yet the male-
factor had repented on the cross, and went never-
theless to paradise.  This did not strike him as
being inconsistent.  Quite the contrary.  The one
confirmed the other:  the fact that the merciful
will go to Heaven, and the unmerciful to hell,
meant that everybody ought to be merciful, and
the malefactor having been forgiven by Christ
meant that Christ was merciful.  This was all
new to Stepan, and he wondered why it had been
hidden from him so long.

From that day onward he spent all his free time
with Chouev, asking him questions and listening
to him.  He saw but a single truth at the bottom
of the teaching of Christ as revealed to him by
Chouev:  that all men are brethren, and that they
ought to love and pity one another in order that
all might be happy.  And when he listened to
Chouev, everything that was consistent with this
fundamental truth came to him like a thing he
had known before and only forgotten since, while
whatever he heard that seemed to contradict it,
he would take no notice of, as he thought that he
simply had not understood the real meaning. 
And from that time Stepan was a different
man.



IV

STEPAN had been very submissive and meek ever
since he came to the prison, but now he made the
prison authorities and all his fellow-prisoners
wonder at the change in him.  Without being or-
dered, and out of his proper turn he would do all
the very hardest work in prison, and the dirtiest
too.  But in spite of his humility, the other pris-
oners stood in awe of him, and were afraid of him,
as they knew he was a resolute man, possessed of
great physical strength.  Their respect for him
increased after the incident of the two tramps
who fell upon him; he wrenched himself loose
from them and broke the arm of one of them in
the fight.  These tramps had gambled with a
young prisoner of some means and deprived him
of all his money.  Stepan took his part, and de-
prived the tramps of their winnings.  The tramps
poured their abuse on him; but when they attacked
him, he got the better of them.  When the Gov-
ernor asked how the fight had come about, the
tramps declared that it was Stepan who had begun
it. Stepan did not try to exculpate himself, and
bore patiently his sentence which was three days
in the punishment-cell, and after that solitary con-
finement.

In his solitary cell he suffered because he could
no longer listen to Chouev and his Gospel.  He
was also afraid that the former visions of HER and
of the black devils would reappear to torment
him.  But the visions were gone for good.  His
soul was full of new and happy ideas.  He felt
glad to be alone if only he could read, and if he
had the Gospel.  He knew that he might have
got hold of the Gospel, but he could not read.

He had started to learn the alphabet in his
boyhood, but could not grasp the joining of the
syllables, and remained illiterate.  He made up
his mind to start reading anew, and asked the
guard to bring him the Gospels.  They were
brought to him, and he sat down to work.  He
contrived to recollect the letters, but could not join
them into syllables.  He tried as hard as he could
to understand how the letters ought to be put to-
gether to form words, but with no result whatever. 
He lost his sleep, had no desire to eat, and a deep
sadness came over him, which he was unable to
shake off.

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

"No."

"Do you know 'Our Father'?"

"I do."

"Since you do, read it in the Gospels.  Here
it is," said the guard, showing him the prayer in
the Gospels.  Stepan began to read it, comparing
the letters he knew with the familiar sounds.

And all of a sudden the mystery of the sylla-
bles was revealed to him, and he began to read. 
This was a great joy.  From that moment he
could read, and the meaning of the words, spelt
out with such great pains, became more significant.

Stepan did not mind any more being alone. 
He was so full of his work that he did not feel
glad when he was transferred back to the common
cell, his private cell being needed for a political
prisoner who had been just sent to prison.



V

IN the meantime Mahin, the schoolboy who had
taught his friend Smokovnikov to forge the cou-
pon, had finished his career at school and then at
the university, where he had studied law.  He
had the advantage of being liked by women, and
as he had won favour with a vice-minister's former
mistress, he was appointed when still young as
examining magistrate.  He was dishonest, had
debts, had gambled, and had seduced many
women; but he was clever, sagacious, and a good
magistrate.  He was appointed to the court of
the district where Stepan Pelageushkine had been
tried.  When Stepan was brought to him the first
time to give evidence, his sincere and quiet answers
puzzled the magistrate.  He somehow uncon-
sciously felt that this man, brought to him in fet-
ters and with a shorn head, guarded by two
soldiers who were waiting to take him back to
prison, had a free soul and was immeasurably su-
perior to himself.  He was in consequence some-
what troubled, and had to summon up all his
courage in order to go on with the inquiry and
not blunder in his questions.  He was amazed
that Stepan should narrate the story of his crimes
as if they had been things of long ago, and com-
mitted not by him but by some different man.

"Had you no pity for them?" asked Mahin. 

"No.  I did not know then."

"Well, and now?"

Stepan smiled with a sad smile.  "Now," he
said, "I would not do it even if I were to be
burned alive."

"But why?

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

"What about me? Am I your brother also?"

"Of course you are."

"And how is it that I, your brother, am send-
ing you to hard labour?"

"It is because you don't know."

"What do I not know?"

"Since you judge, it means obviously that you
don't know."

"Go on.  .  .  .What next?"



VI

Now it was not Chouev,  but Stepan who used to
read the gospel in the common cell.  Some of the
prisoners were singing coarse songs, while others
listened to Stepan reading the gospel and talking
about what he had read.  The most attentive
among those who listened were two of the pris-
oners, Vassily, and a convict called Mahorkin, a
murderer who had become a hangman.  Twice
during his stay in this prison he was called upon
to do duty as hangman, and both times in far-
away places where nobody could be found to ex-
ecute the sentences.

Two of the peasants who had killed Peter
Nikolaevich Sventizky, had been sentenced to
the gallows, and Mahorkin was ordered to go to
Pensa to hang them.  On all previous occasions
he used to write a petition to the governor of the
province--he knew well how to read and to write
--stating that he had been ordered to fulfil his
duty, and asking for money for his expenses.  But
now, to the greatest astonishment of the prison
authorities, he said he did not intend to go, and
added that he would not be a hangman any more.

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

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

"Did you get that from Pelageushkine? A
nice sort of a prison prophet! You just wait and
see what this will cost you!"

When Mahin was told of that incident, he was
greatly impressed by the fact of Stepan's influence
on the hangman, who refused to do his duty, run-
ning the risk of being hanged himself for insub-
ordination.



VII

AT an evening party at the Eropkins, Mahin, who
was paying attentions to the two young daughters
of the house--they were rich matches, both of
them--having earned great applause for his fine
singing and playing the piano, began telling the
company about the strange convict who had con-
verted the hangman.  Mahin told his story very
accurately, as he had a very good memory, which
was all the more retentive because of his total in-
difference to those with whom he had to deal. 
He never paid the slightest attention to other peo-
ple's feelings, and was therefore better able to
keep all they did or said in his memory.  He got
interested in Stepan Pelageushkine, and, although
he did not thoroughly understand him, yet asked
himself involuntarily what was the matter with
the man? He could not find an answer, but feel-
ing that there was certainly something remarkable
going on in Stepan's soul, he told the company at
the Eropkins all about Stepan's conversion of the
hangman, and also about his strange behaviour
in prison, his reading the Gospels and his great
influence on the rest of the prisoners.  All this
made a special impression on the younger daugh-
ter of the family, Lisa, a girl of eighteen, who
was just recovering from the artificial life she had
been living in a boarding-school; she felt as if
she had emerged out of water, and was taking in
the fresh air of true life with ecstasy.  She asked
Mahin to tell her more about the man Pelageush-
kine, and to explain to her how such a great change
had come over him.  Mahin told her what he
knew from the police official about Stepan's last
murder, and also what he had heard from Pela-
geushkine himself--how he had been conquered
by the humility, mildness, and fearlessness of a
kind woman, who had been his last victim, and
how his eyes had been opened, while the reading
of the Gospels had completed the change in him.

Lisa Eropkin was not able to sleep that night. 
For a couple of months a struggle had gone on in
her heart between society life, into which her sis-
ter was dragging her, and her infatuation for
Mahin, combined with a desire to reform him. 
This second desire now became the stronger. 
She had already heard about poor Maria Seme-
novna.  But, after that kind woman had been
murdered in such a ghastly way, and after Mahin,
who learnt it from Stepan, had communicated to
her all the facts concerning Maria Semenovna's
life, Lisa herself passionately desired to become
like her.  She was a rich girl, and was afraid
that Mahin had been courting her because of her
money.  So she resolved to give all she possessed
to the poor, and told Mahin about it.

Mahin was very glad to prove his disinterest-
edness, and told Lisa that he loved her and not
her money.  Such proof of his innate nobility
made him admire himself greatly.  Mahin
helped Lisa to carry out her decision.  And the
more he did so, the more he came to realise the
new world of Lisa's spiritual ambitions, quite un-
known to him heretofore.



VIII

ALL were silent in the common cell.  Stepan was
lying in his bed, but was not yet asleep.  Vassily
approached him, and, pulling him by his leg,
asked him in a whisper to get up and to come to
him.  Stepan stepped out of his bed, and came
up to Vassily.

"Do me a kindness, brother," said Vassily.
"Help me!"

"In what?"

"I am going to fly from the prison."

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

"To-morrow I shall stir them up--" He
pointed to the prisoners asleep in their beds. 
"They will give me away, and I shall be trans-
ferred to the cell in the upper floor.  I know my
way from there.  What I want you for is to un-
screw the prop in the door of the mortuary."
"I can do that.  But where will you go?"

"I don't care where.  Are not there plenty of
wicked people in every place?"

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

"I am not a murderer, to be sure.  I have not
destroyed a living soul in my life.  As for steal-
ing, I don't see any harm in that.  As if they have
not robbed us!"

"Let them answer for it themselves, if they
do."

"Bother them all!"  Suppose I rob a church,
who will be hurt? This time I will take care
not to break into a small shop, but will get
hold of a lot of money, and then I will help people
with it.  I will give it to all good people."

One of the prisoners rose in his bed and lis-
tened.  Stepan and Vassily broke off their con-
versation.  The next day Vassily carried out his
idea.  He began complaining of the bread in
prison, saying it was moist, and induced the pris-
oners to call the governor and to tell him of their
discontent.  The governor came, abused them all,
and when he heard it was Vassily who had stirred
up the men, he ordered him to be transferred
into solitary confinement in the cell on the upper
floor.  This was all Vassily wanted.



IX

VASSILY knew well that cell on the upper floor. 
He knew its floor, and began at once to take out
bits of it.  When he had managed to get under
the floor he took out pieces of the ceiling beneath,
and jumped down into the mortuary a floor below. 
That day only one corpse was lying on the table. 
There in the corner of the room were stored bags
to make hay mattresses for the prisoners.  Vas-
sily knew about the bags, and that was why  the
mortuary served his purposes.  The prop in the
door had been unscrewed and put in again.  He
took it out, opened the door, and went out into
the passage to the lavatory which was being built. 
In the lavatory was a large hole connecting the
third floor with the basement floor.  After hav-
ing found the door of the lavatory he went back
to the mortuary, stripped the sheet off the dead
body which was as cold as ice (in taking off the
sheet Vassily touched his hand), took the bags,
tied them together to make a rope, and carried
the rope to the lavatory.  Then he attached it
to the cross-beam, and climbed down along it. 
The rope did not reach the ground, but he did
not know how much was wanting.  Anyhow, he
had to take the risk.  He remained hanging in
the air, and then jumped down.  His legs were
badly hurt, but he could still walk on.  The
basement had two windows; he could have climbed
out of one of them but for the grating protecting
them.  He had to break the grating, but there
was no tool to do it with.  Vassily began to look
around him, and chanced on a piece of plank with
a sharp edge; armed with that weapon he tried
to loosen the bricks which held the grating.  He
worked a long time at that task.  The cock
crowed for the second time, but the grating still
held.  At last he had loosened one side; and then
he pushed the plank under the loosened end and
pressed with all his force.  The grating gave way
completely, but at that moment one of the bricks
fell down heavily.  The noise could have been
heard by the sentry.  Vassily stood motionless. 
But silence reigned.  He climbed out of the win-
dow.  His way of escape was to climb the wall. 
An outhouse stood in the corner of the courtyard. 
He had to reach its roof, and pass thence to the
top of the wall.  But he would not be able to
reach the roof without the help of the plank; so
he had to go back through the basement  window
to fetch it.  A moment later he came out of the
window with the plank in his hands; he stood still
for a while listening to the steps of the sentry. 
His expectations were justified.  The sentry was
walking up and down on the other side of the
courtyard.  Vassily came up to the outhouse,
leaned the plank against it, and began climbing. 
The plank slipped and fell on the ground.  Vas-
sily had his stockings on; he took them off so that
be could cling with his bare feet in coming down. 
Then he leaned the plank again against the house,
and seized the water-pipe with his hands.  If only
this time the plank would hold! A quick move-
ment up the water-pipe, and his knee rested on
the roof.  The sentry was approaching.  Vassily
lay motionless.  The sentry did not notice him,
and passed on.  Vassily leaped to his feet; the
iron roof cracked under him.  Another step or
two, and he would reach the wall.  He could
touch it with his hand now.  He leaned forward
with one hand, then with the other, stretched out
his body as far as he could, and found himself
on the wall.  Only, not to break his legs in jump-
ing down, Vassily turned round, remained hang-
ing in the air by his hands, stretched himself out,
loosened the grip of one hand, then the other. 
"Help, me, God!" He was on the ground.
And the ground was soft.  His legs were not
hurt, and he ran at the top of his speed.  In a
suburb, Malania opened her door, and he crept
under her warm coverlet, made of small pieces
of different colours stitched together.



X

THE wife of Peter Nikolaevich Sventizky, a tall
and handsome woman, as quiet and sleek as a
well-fed heifer, had seen from her window how
her husband had been murdered and dragged away
into the fields.  The horror of such a sight to
Natalia Ivanovna was so intense--how could it
be otherwise?--that all her other feelings van-
ished.  No sooner had the crowd disappeared
from view behind the garden fence, and the voices
had become still; no sooner had the bare-footed
Malania, their servant, run in with her eyes start-
ing out of her head, calling out in a voice more
suited to the proclamation of glad tidings the
news that Peter Nikolaevich had been murdered
and thrown into the ravine, than Natalia Ivan-
ovna felt that behind her first sensation of horror,
there was another sensation; a feeling of joy at
her deliverance from the tyrant, who through all
the nineteen years of their married life had made
her work without a moment's rest.  Her joy
made her aghast; she did not confess it to herself,
but hid it the more from those around.  When
his mutilated, yellow and hairy body was being
washed and put into the coffin, she cried with hor-
ror, and wept and sobbed.  When the coroner--
a special coroner for serious cases--came and
was taking her evidence, she noticed in the room,
where the inquest was taking place, two peasants
in irons, who had been charged as the principal
culprits.  One of them was an old man with a
curly white beard, and a calm and severe coun-
tenance.  The other was rather young, of a gipsy
type, with bright eyes and curly dishevelled hair. 
She declared that they were the two men who had
first seized hold of Peter Nikolaevich's hands. 
In spite of the gipsy-like peasant looking at her
with his eyes glistening from under his moving
eyebrows, and saying reproachfully:  "A great
sin, lady, it is.  Remember your death hour!"
--in spite of that, she did not feel at all sorry for
them.  On the contrary, she began to hate them
during the inquest, and wished desperately to
take revenge on her husband's murderers.

A month later, after the case, which was com-
mitted for trial by court-martial, had ended in
eight men being sentenced to hard labour, and in
two--the old man with the white beard, and the
gipsy boy, as she called the other--being con-
demned to be hanged, Natalia felt vaguely uneasy. 
But unpleasant doubts soon pass away under the
solemnity of a trial.  Since such high authorities
considered that this was the right thing to do, it
must be right.

The execution was to take place in the village
itself.  One Sunday Malania came home from
church in her new dress and her new boots, and
announced to her mistress that the gallows were
being erected, and that the hangman was expected
from Moscow on Wednesday.  She also an-
nounced that the families of the convicts were
raging, and that their cries could be heard all over
the village.

Natalia Ivanovna did not go out of her house;
she did not wish to see the gallows and the people
in the village; she only wanted what had to hap-
pen to be over quickly.  She only considered her
own feelings, and did not care for the convicts
and their families.

On Tuesday the village constable called on
Natalia Ivanovna.  He was a friend, and she of-
fered him vodka and preserved mushrooms of her
own making.  The constable, after eating a little,
told her that the execution was not to take place
the next day.

"Why?"

"A very strange thing has happened.  There
is no hangman to be found.  They had one in
Moscow, my son told me, but he has been reading
the Gospels a good deal and says:  'I will not
commit a murder.' He had himself been sen-
tenced to hard labour for having committed a mur-
der, and now he objects to hang when the law or-
ders him.  He was threatened with flogging. 
'You may flog me,' he said, 'but I won't do it.'"

Natalia Ivanovna grew red and hot at the
thought which suddenly came into her head.

"Could not the death sentence be commuted
now?"

"How so, since the judges have passed it?
The Czar alone has the right of amnesty."

"But how would he know?"

"They have the right of appealing to him."

"But it is on my account they are to die," said
that stupid woman, Natalia Ivanovna.  "And I
forgive them."

The constable laughed.  "Well--send a pe-
tition to the Czar."

"May I do it?"

"Of course you may."

"But is it not too late?"

"Send it by telegram."

"To the Czar himself?"

"To the Czar, if you like."

The story of the hangman having refused to
do his duty, and preferring to take the flogging
instead, suddenly changed the soul of Natalia
Ivanovna.  The pity and the horror she felt the
moment she heard that the peasants were sen-
tenced to death, could not be stifled now, but
filled her whole soul.

"Filip Vassilievich, my friend.  Write that tel-
egram for me.  I want to appeal to the Czar to
pardon them."

The constable shook his head.  "I wonder
whether that would not involve us in trouble?"

"I do it upon my own responsibility.  I will
not mention your name."

"Is not she a kind woman," thought the con-
stable.  "Very kind-hearted, to be sure.  If my
wife had such a heart, our life would be a para-
dise, instead of what it is now "  And he wrote
the telegram,--

" To his Imperial Majesty, the Emperor.
"Your Majesty's loyal subject, the widow of Pe-
ter Nikolaevich Sventizky, murdered by the peas-
ants, throws herself at the sacred feet (this
sentence, when he wrote it down, pleased the con-
stable himself most of all) of your Imperial
Majesty, and implores you to grant an amnesty
to the peasants so and so, from such a province,
district, and village, who have been sentenced to
death."

The telegram was sent by the constable him-
self, and Natalia Ivanovna felt relieved and
happy.  She had a feeling that since she, the
widow of the murdered man, had forgiven the
murderers, and was applying for an amnesty, the
Czar could not possibly refuse it.



XI

LISA EROPKIN lived in a state of continual ex-
citement.  The longer she lived a true Christian
life as it had been revealed to her, the more con-
vinced she became that it was the right way, and
her heart was full of joy.

She had two immediate aims before her.  The
one was to convert Mahin; or, as she put it to
herself, to arouse his true nature, which was good
and kind.  She loved him, and the light of her
love revealed the divine element in his soul which
is at the bottom of all souls.  But, further, she
saw in him an exceptionally  kind and tender
heart, as well as a noble mind.  Her other aim
was to abandon her riches.  She had first thought
of giving away what she possessed in order to
test Mahin; but afterwards she wanted to do so
for her own sake, for the sake of her own soul. 
She began by simply giving money to any one who
wanted it.  But her father stopped that; besides
which, she felt disgusted at the crowd of suppli-
cants who personally, and by letters, besieged her
with demands for money.  Then she resolved to
apply to an old man, known to be a saint by his
life, and to give him her money to dispose of in
the way he thought best.  Her father got angry
with her when he heard about it.  During a vio-
lent altercation he called her mad, a raving luna-
tic, and said he would take measures to prevent
her from doing injury to herself.

Her father's irritation proved contagious. 
Losing all control over herself, and sobbing with
rage, she behaved with the greatest impertinence
to her father, calling him a tyrant and a miser.

Then she asked his forgiveness.  He said he
did not mind what she said; but she saw plainly
that he was offended, and in his heart did not
forgive her.  She did not feel inclined to tell
Mahin about her quarrel with her father; as to
her sister, she was very cold to Lisa, being jealous
of Mahin's love for her.

"I ought to confess to God," she said to her-
self.  As all this happened in Lent, she made up
her mind to fast in preparation for the communion,
and to reveal all her thoughts to the father con-
fessor, asking his advice as to what she ought to
decide for the future.

At a small distance from her town a monastery
was situated, where an old monk lived who had
gained a great reputation by his holy life, by his
sermons and prophecies, as well as by the mar-
vellous cures ascribed to him.

The monk had received a letter from Lisa's
father announcing the visit of his daughter, and
telling him in what a state of excitement the young
girl was.  He also expressed the hope in that
letter that the monk would influence her in the
right way, urging her not to depart from the
golden mean, and to live like a good Christian
without trying to upset the present conditions of
her life.

The monk received Lisa after he had seen
many other people, and being very tired, began
by quietly recommending her to be modest and to
submit to her present conditions of life and to
her parents.  Lisa listened silently, blushing and
flushed with excitement.  When he had finished
admonishing her, she began saying with tears in
her eyes, timidly at first, that Christ bade us leave
father and mother to follow Him.  Getting more
and more excited, she told him her conception of
Christ.  The monk smiled slightly, and replied
as he generally did when admonishing his peni-
tents; but after a while he remained silent,
repeating with heavy sighs, "O God!"
Then he said, "Well, come to confession to-
morrow," and blessed her with his wrinkled
hands.

The next day Lisa came to confession, and
without renewing their interrupted conversation,
he absolved her and refused to dispose of her for-
tune, giving no reasons for doing so.

Lisa's purity, her devotion to God and her ar-
dent soul, impressed the monk deeply.  He had
desired long ago to renounce the world entirely;
but the brotherhood, which drew a large income
from his work as a preacher, insisted on his con-
tinuing his activity.  He gave way, although he
had a vague feeling that he was in a false posi-
tion.  It was rumoured that he was a miracle-
working saint, whereas in reality he was a weak
man, proud of his success in the world.  When
the soul of Lisa was revealed to him, he saw
clearly into his own soul.  He discovered how
different he was to what he wanted to be, and
realised the desire of his heart.

Soon after Lisa's visit he went to live in a sep-
arate cell as a hermit, and for three weeks did not
officiate again in the church of the friary.  After
the celebration of the mass, he preached a sermon
denouncing his own sins and those of the world,
and urging all to repent.

From that day he preached every fortnight,
and his sermons attracted increasing audiences.
His fame as a preacher spread abroad.  His
sermons were extraordinarily fearless and sin-
cere, and deeply impressed all who listened to him.



XII

VASSILY was actually carrying out the object he
bad in leaving the prison.  With the help of a few
friends he broke into the house of the rich mer-
chant Krasnopuzov, whom he knew to be a miser
and a debauchee.  Vassily took out of his writing-
desk thirty thousand roubles, and began disposing
of them as he thought right.  He even gave up
drink, so as not to spend that money on himself,
but to distribute it to the poor; helping poor girls
to get married; paying off people's debts, and do-
ing this all without ever revealing himself to those
he helped; his only desire was to distribute his
money in the right way.  As he also gave bribes
to the police, he was left in peace for a long time.

His heart was singing for joy.  When at last
he was arrested and put to trial, he confessed
with pride that he had robbed the fat merchant.
"The money," he said, "was lying idle in that
fool's desk, and he did not even know how much
he had, whereas I have put it into circulation and
helped a lot of good people."

The counsel for the defence spoke with such
good humour and kindness that the jury felt in-
clined to discharge Vassily, but sentenced him
nevertheless to confinement in prison.  He
thanked the jury, and assured them that he would
find his way out of prison before long.


XIII

NATALIA IVANOVNA SVENTIZKY'S telegram
proved useless.  The committee appointed to
deal with the petitions in the Emperor's name, de-
cided not even to make a report to the Czar.
But one day when the Sventizky case was dis-
cussed at the Emperor's luncheon-table, the chair-
man of the committee, who was present, mentioned
the telegram which had been received from Sven-
tizky's widow.

"C'est tres gentil de sa part," said one of the
ladies of the imperial family.

The Emperor sighed, shrugged his shoulders,
adorned with epaulettes.  "The law," he said;
and raised his glass for the groom of the chamber
to pour out some Moselle.

All those present pretended to admire the wis-
dom of the sovereign's words.  There was no
further question about the telegram.  The two
peasants, the old man and the young boy, were
hanged by a Tartar hangman from Kazan, a cruel
convict and a murderer.

The old man's wife wanted to dress the body of
her husband in a white shirt, with white bands
which serve as stockings, and new boots, but she
was not allowed to do so.  The two men were
buried together in the same pit outside the church-
yard wall.

"Princess Sofia Vladimirovna tells me he is a
very remarkable preacher," remarked the old Em-
press, the Emperor's mother, one day to her son:
"Faites le venir.  Il peut precher a la cathedrale."

"No, it would be better in the palace church,"
said the Emperor, and ordered the hermit Isidor
to be invited.

All the generals, and other high officials, as-
sembled in the church of the imperial palace; it
was an event to hear the famous preacher.

A thin and grey old man appeared, looked at
those present, and said:  "In the name of God,
the Son, and the Holy Ghost," and began to
speak.

At first all went well, but the longer he spoke
the worse it became.  "Il devient de plus en plus
aggressif," as the Empress put it afterwards. 
He fulminated against every one.  He spoke
about the executions and charged the government
with having made so many necessary.  How can
the government of a Christian country kill men?

Everybody looked at everybody else, thinking
of the bad taste of the sermon, and how unpleas-
ant it must be for the Emperor to listen to it; but
nobody expressed these thoughts aloud.

When Isidor had said Amen, the metropolitan
approached, and asked him to call on him.

After Isidor had had a talk with the metropol-
itan and with the attorney-general, he was imme-
diately sent away to a friary, not his own, but one
at Suzdal, which had a prison attached to it; the
prior of that friary was now Father Missael.



XIV

EVERY one tried to look as if Isidor's sermon
contained nothing unpleasant, and nobody men-
tioned it.  It seemed to the Czar that the hermit's
words had not made any impression on himself;
but once or twice during that day he caught him-
self thinking of the two peasants who had been
hanged, and the widow of Sventizky who had
asked an amnesty for them.  That day the Em-
peror had to be present at a parade; after which
he went out for a drive; a reception of ministers
came next, then dinner, after dinner the theatre. 
As usual, the Czar fell asleep the moment his head
touched the pillow.  In the night an awful dream
awoke him:  he saw gallows in a large field and
corpses dangling on them; the tongues of the
corpses were protruding, and their bodies moved
and shook.  And somebody shouted, "It is you
--you who have done it "  The Czar woke up
bathed in perspiration and began to think.  It
was the first time that he had ever thought of the
responsibilities which weighed on him, and the
words of old Isidor came back to his
mind. . . .

But only dimly could he see himself as a mere
human being, and he could not consider his mere
human wants and duties, because of all that was
required of him as Czar.  As to acknowledging
that human duties were more obligatory than
those of a Czar--he had not strength for that.



XV

HAVING served his second term in the prison, Pro-
kofy, who had formerly worked on the Sventizky
estate, was no longer the brisk, ambitious, smartly
dressed fellow he had been.  He seemed, on the
contrary, a complete wreck.  When sober he
would sit idle and would refuse to do any work,
however much his father scolded him; moreover,
he was continually seeking to get hold of some-
thing secretly, and take it to the public-house for
a drink.  When he came home he would continue
to sit idle, coughing and spitting all the time. 
The doctor on whom he called, examined his chest
and shook his head.

"You, my man, ought to have many things
which you have not got."

"That is usually the case, isn't it?

"Take plenty of milk, and don't smoke."

"These are days of fasting, and besides we
have no cow."

Once in spring he could not get any sleep; he
was longing to have a drink.  There was nothing
in the house he could lay his hand on to take to
the public-house.  He put on his cap and went
out.  He walked along the street up to the house
where the priest and the deacon lived together. 
The deacon's harrow stood outside leaning against
the hedge.  Prokofy approached, took the har-
row upon his shoulder, and walked to an inn kept
by a woman, Petrovna.  She might give him a
small bottle of vodka for it.  But he had hardly
gone a few steps when the deacon came out of his
house.  It was already dawn, and he saw that
Prokofy was carrying away his harrow.

"Hey, what's that?" cried the deacon.

The neighbours rushed out from their houses. 
Prokofy was seized, brought to the police station,
and then sentenced to eleven months' imprison-
ment.  It was autumn, and Prokofy had to be
transferred to the prison hospital.  He was
coughing badly; his chest was heaving from the
exertion; and he could not get warm.  Those who
were stronger contrived not to shiver; Prokofy
on the contrary shivered day and night, as the su-
perintendent would not light the fires in the hos-
pital till November, to save expense.

Prokofy suffered greatly in body, and still more
in soul.  He was disgusted with his surroundings,
and hated every one--the deacon, the superin-
tendent who would not light the fires, the guard,
and the man who was lying in the bed next to his,
and who had a swollen red lip.  He began also
to hate the new convict who was brought into
hospital.  This convict was Stepan.  He was
suffering from some disease on his head, and was
transferred to the hospital and put in a bed at
Prokofy's side.  After a time that hatred to
Stepan changed, and Prokofy became, on the con-
trary, extremely fond of him; he delighted in
talking to him.  It was only after a talk with
Stepan that his anguish would cease for a while. 
Stepan always told every one he met about his
last murder, and how it had impressed him.

Far from shrieking, or anything of that
kind," he said to Prokofy, "she did not move.
'Kill me! There I am,' she said.  'But it is not
my soul you destroy, it is your own.'"

"Well, of course, it is very dreadful to kill.  I
had one day to slaughter a sheep, and even that
made me half mad.  I have not destroyed any liv-
ing soul; why then do those villains kill me? I
have done no harm to anybody . . ."

"That will be taken into consideration."

"By whom?"

"By God, to be sure."

"I have not seen anything yet showing that
God exists, and I don't believe in Him, brother. 
I think when a man dies, grass will grow over
the spot, and that is the end of it."

"You are wrong to think like that.  I have
murdered so many people, whereas she, poor
soul, was helping everybody.  And you think she
and I are to have the same lot? Oh no! Only
wait."

"Then you believe the soul lives on after a
man is dead?"

"To be sure; it truly lives."

Prokofy suffered greatly when death drew
near.  He could hardly breathe.  But in the very
last hour he felt suddenly relieved from all pain. 
He called Stepan to him.  "Farewell, brother,"
he said.  "Death has come, I see.  I was so
afraid of it before.  And now I don't mind.  I
only wish it to come quicker."



XVI

IN the meanwhile, the affairs of Eugene Mihailo-
vich had grown worse and worse.  Business was
very slack.  There was a new shop in the town;
he was losing his customers, and the interest had
to be paid.  He borrowed again on interest.  At
last his shop and his goods were to be sold up. 
Eugene Mihailovich and his wife applied to every
one they knew, but they could not raise the four
hundred roubles they needed to save the shop any-
where.

They had some hope of the merchant Krasno-
puzov, Eugene Mihailovich's wife being on good
terms with his mistress.  But news came that
Krasnopuzov had been robbed of a huge sum of
money.  Some said of half a million roubles. 
"And do you know who is said to be the thief?"
said Eugene Mihailovich to his wife.  "Vassily,
our former yard-porter.  They say he is squan-
dering the money, and the police are bribed by him."

"I knew he was a villain.  You remember how
he did not mind perjuring himself? But I did
not expect it would go so far."

"I hear he has recently been in the courtyard
of our house.  Cook says she is sure it was he. 
She told me he helps poor girls to get married."

"They always invent tales.  I don't believe it."

At that moment a strange man, shabbily dressed,
entered the shop.

"What is it you want?"

"Here is a letter for you."

"From whom?"

"You will see yourself."

"Don't you require an answer? Wait a mo-
ment."

"I cannot "  The strange man handed the let-
ter and disappeared.

"How extraordinary!" said Eugene Mihailo-
vich, and tore open the envelope.  To his great
amazement several hundred rouble notes fell out. 
"Four hundred roubles!" he exclaimed, hardly
believing his eyes.  "What does it mean?"

The envelope also contained a badly-spelt letter,
addressed to Eugene Mihailovich.  "It is said in
the Gospels," ran the letter, " do good for evil. 
You have done me much harm; and in the coupon
case you made me wrong the peasants greatly. 
But I have pity for you.  Here are four hundred
notes.  Take them, and remember your porter
Vassily."

"Very extraordinary!" said Eugene Mihailo-
vich to his wife and to himself.  And each time
he remembered that incident, or spoke about it
to his wife, tears would come to his eyes.



XVII

FOURTEEN priests were kept in the Suzdal friary
prison, chiefly for having been untrue to the or-
thodox faith.  Isidor had been sent to that place
also.  Father Missael received him according to
the instructions he had been given, and without
talking to him ordered him to be put into a sep-
arate cell as a serious criminal.  After a fort-
night Father Missael, making a round of the
prison, entered Isidor's cell, and asked him
whether there was anything he wished for.

"There is a great deal I wish for," answered
Isidor; "but I cannot tell you what it is in the
presence of anybody else.  Let me talk to you
privately."

They looked at each other, and Missael saw he
had nothing to be afraid of in remaining alone
with Isidor.  He ordered Isidor to be brought
into his own room, and when they were alone, he
said,--

"Well, now you can speak."

Isidor fell on his knees.

"Brother," said Isidor.  "What are you do-
ing to yourself! Have mercy on your own soul. 
You are the worst villain in the world.  You have
offended against all that is sacred . . ."

A month after Missael sent a report, asking
that Isidor should be released as he had repented,
and he also asked for the release of the rest of
the prisoners.  After which he resigned his post.



XVIII

TEN years passed.  Mitia Smokovnikov had fin-
ished his studies in the Technical College; he was
now an engineer in the gold mines in Siberia, and
was very highly paid.  One day he was about to
make a round in the district.  The governor of-
fered him a convict, Stepan Pelageushkine, to ac-
company him on his journey.

"A convict, you say? But is not that danger-
ous?"

"Not if it is this one.  He is a holy man.  You
may ask anybody, they will all tell you so."

"Why has he been sent here?"

The governor smiled.  "He had committed six
murders, and yet he is a holy man.  I go bail for
him."

Mitia Smokovnikov took Stepan, now a bald-
headed, lean, tanned man, with him on his journey. 
On their way Stepan took care of Smokovnikov,
like his own child, and told him his story; told
him why he had been sent here, and what now
filled his life.

And, strange to say, Mitia Smokovnikov, who
up to that time used to spend his time drinking,
eating, and gambling, began for the first time to
meditate on life.  These thoughts never left him
now, and produced a complete change in his habits. 
After a time he was offered a very advantageous
position.  He refused it, and made up his mind
to buy an estate with the money he had, to marry,
and to devote himself to the peasantry, helping
them as much as he could.



XIX

HE carried out his intentions.  But before retiring
to his estate he called on his father, with whom
he had been on bad terms, and who had settled
apart with his new family.  Mitia Smokovnikov
wanted to make it up.  The old man wondered at
first, and laughed at the change he noticed in his
son; but after a while he ceased to find fault with
him, and thought of the many times when it was
he who was the guilty one.




AFTER THE DANCE




AFTER THE DANCE

"--AND you say that a man cannot, of himself,
understand what is good and evil; that it is all
environment, that the environment swamps the
man.  But I believe it is all chance.  Take my
own case . . ."

Thus spoke our excellent friend, Ivan Vasilie-
vich, after a conversation between us on the impos-
sibility of improving individual character without
a change of the conditions under which men live. 
Nobody had actually said that one could not of
oneself understand good and evil; but it was a
habit of Ivan Vasilievich to answer in this way the
thoughts aroused in his own mind by conversation,
and to illustrate those thoughts by relating inci-
dents in his own life.  He often quite forgot the
reason for his story in telling it; but he always told
it with great sincerity and feeling.

He did so now.

"Take my own case.  My whole life was
moulded, not by environment, but by something
quite different."

"By what, then?" we asked.

"Oh, that is a long story.  I should have to
tell you about a great many things to make you
understand."

"Well, tell us then."

Ivan Vasilievich thought a little, and shook his
head.

"My whole life," he said, "was changed in one
night, or, rather, morning."

"Why, what happened?" one of us asked.

"What happened was that I was very much in
love.  I have been in love many times, but this
was the most serious of all.  It is a thing of the
past; she has married daughters now.  It was
Varinka B---- "  Ivan Vasilievich mentioned her
surname.  "Even at fifty she is remarkably hand-
some; but in her youth, at eighteen, she was ex-
quisite--tall, slender, graceful, and stately.  Yes,
stately is the word; she held herself very erect, by
instinct as it were; and carried her head high, and
that together with her beauty and height gave her
a queenly air in spite of being thin, even bony one
might say.  It might indeed have been deterring
had it not been for her smile, which was always
gay and cordial, and for the charming light in
her eyes and for her youthful sweetness."

"What an entrancing description you give, Ivan
Vasilievich!"

"Description, indeed! I could not possibly de-
scribe her so that you could appreciate her.  But
that does not matter; what I am going to tell you
happened in the forties.  I was at that time a
student in a provincial university.  I don't know
whether it was a good thing or no, but we had no
political clubs, no theories in our universities then. 
We were simply young and spent our time as young
men do, studying and amusing ourselves.  I was a
very gay, lively, careless fellow, and had plenty of
money too.  I had a fine horse, and used to go
tobogganing with the young ladies.  Skating had
not yet come into fashion.  I went to drinking
parties with my comrades--in those days we
drank nothing but champagne--if we had no
champagne we drank nothing at all.  We never
drank vodka, as they do now.  Evening parties
and balls were my favourite amusements.  I
danced well, and was not an ugly fellow."

"Come, there is no need to be modest," inter-
rupted a lady near him.  "We have seen your
photograph.  Not ugly, indeed! You were a
handsome fellow."

"Handsome, if you like.  That does not mat-
ter.  When my love for her was at its strongest,
on the last day of the carnival, I was at a ball at
the provincial marshal's, a good-natured old man,
rich and hospitable, and a court chamberlain.  The
guests were welcomed by his wife, who was as
good-natured as himself.  She was dressed in
puce-coloured velvet, and had a diamond diadem
on her forehead, and her plump, old white shoul-
ders and bosom were bare like the portraits of
Empress Elizabeth, the daughter of Peter the
Great.

"It was a delightful ball.  It was a splendid
room, with a gallery for the orchestra, which was
famous at the time, and consisted of serfs belong-
ing to a musical landowner.  The refreshments
were magnificent, and the champagne flowed in
rivers.  Though I was fond of champagne I did
not drink that night, because without it I was
drunk with love.  But I made up for it by danc-
ing waltzes and polkas till I was ready to drop--
of course, whenever possible, with Varinka.  She
wore a white dress with a pink sash, white shoes,
and white kid gloves, which did not quite reach to
her thin pointed elbows.  A disgusting engineer
named Anisimov robbed me of the mazurka with
her--to this day I cannot forgive him.  He asked
her for the dance the minute she arrived, while
I had driven to the hair-dresser's to get a pair of
gloves, and was late.  So I did not dance the
mazurka with her, but with a German girl to whom
I had previously paid a little attention; but I am
afraid I did not behave very politely to her that
evening.  I hardly spoke or looked at her, and saw
nothing but the tall, slender figure in a white dress,
with a pink sash, a flushed, beaming, dimpled
face, and sweet, kind eyes.  I was not alone; they
were all looking at her with admiration, the men
and women alike, although she outshone all of
them.  They could not help admiring her.

"Although I was not nominally her partner for
the mazurka, I did as a matter of fact dance nearly
the whole time with her.  She always came for-
ward boldly the whole length of the room to pick
me out.  I flew to meet her without waiting to be
chosen, and she thanked me with a smile for my
intuition.  When I was brought up to her with
somebody else, and she guessed wrongly, she took
the other man's hand with a shrug of her slim
shoulders, and smiled at me regretfully.

"Whenever there was a waltz figure in the
mazurka, I waltzed with her for a long time, and
breathing fast and smiling, she would say, 'En-
core'; and I went on waltzing and waltzing, as
though unconscious of any bodily existence."

"Come now, how could you be unconscious of
it with your arm round her waist? You must
have been conscious, not only of your own exist-
ence, but of hers," said one of the party.

Ivan Vasilievich cried out, almost shouting in
anger:  " There you are, moderns all over! Now-
adays you think of nothing but the body.  It was
different in our day.  The more I was in love the
less corporeal was she in my eyes.  Nowadays you
think of nothing but the body.  It was different
in our day.  The more I was in love the less cor-
poreal was she in my eyes.  Nowadays you set
legs, ankles, and I don't know what.  You undress
the women you are in love with.  In my eyes, as
Alphonse Karr said--and he was a good writer
--'the one I loved was always draped in robes of
bronze.' We never thought of doing so; we tried
to veil her nakedness, like Noah's good-natured
son.  Oh, well, you can't understand."

"Don't pay any attention to him.  Go on," said
one of them.

"Well, I danced for the most part with her,
and did not notice how time was passing.  The
musicians kept playing the same mazurka tunes
over and over again in desperate exhaustion--you
know what it is towards the end of a ball.  Papas
and mammas were already getting up from the
card-tables in the drawing-room in expectation of
supper, the men-servants were running to and
fro bringing in things.  It was nearly three
o'clock.  I had to make the most of the last
minutes.  I chose her again for the mazurka, and
for the hundredth time we danced across the
room.

"'The quadrille after supper is mine,' I said,
taking her to her place.

"'Of course, if I am not carried off home,' she
said, with a smile.

"'I won't give you up,' I said.

"'Give me my fan, anyhow,' she answered.

"'I am so sorry to part with it,' I said, handing
her a cheap white fan.

"'Well, here's something to console you,' she
said, plucking a feather out of the fan, and giving
it to me.

"I took the feather, and could only express my
rapture and gratitude with my eyes.  I was not
only pleased and gay, I was happy, delighted; I
was good, I was not myself but some being not
of this earth, knowing nothing of evil.  I hid the
feather in my glove, and stood there unable to
tear myself away from her.

"'Look, they are urging father to dance,' she
said to me, pointing to the tall, stately figure of
her father, a colonel with silver epaulettes, who
was standing in the doorway with some ladies.

"'Varinka, come here!' exclaimed our hostess,
the lady with the diamond ferronniere and with
shoulders like Elizabeth, in a loud voice.

"'Varinka went to the door, and I followed her. 

"'Persuade your father to dance the mazurka
with you, ma chere.--Do, please, Peter Valdislavo-
vich,' she said, turning to the colonel.

"Varinka's father was a very handsome, well-
preserved old man.  He had a good colour, mous-
taches curled in the style of Nicolas I., and white
whiskers which met the moustaches.  His hair was
combed on to his forehead, and a bright smile,
like his daughter's, was on his lips and in his eyes. 
He was splendidly set up, with a broad military
chest, on which he wore some decorations, and he
had powerful shoulders and long slim legs.  He
was that ultra-military type produced by the disci-
pline of Emperor Nicolas I.

"When we approached the door the colonel was
just refusing to dance, saying that he had quite for-
gotten how; but at that instant he smiled, swung
his arm gracefully around to the left, drew his
sword from its sheath, handed it to an obliging
young man who stood near, and smoothed his
suede glove on his right hand.

"'Everything must be done according to rule,'
he said with a smile.  He took the hand of his
daughter, and stood one-quarter turned, waiting
for the music.

"At the first sound of the mazurka, he stamped
one foot smartly, threw the other forward, and,
at first slowly and smoothly, then buoyantly and
impetuously, with stamping of feet and clicking of
boots, his tall, imposing figure moved the length
of the room.  Varinka swayed gracefully beside
him, rhythmically and easily, making her steps
short or long, with her little feet in their white satin
slippers.

"All the people in the room followed every
movement of the couple.  As for me I not only ad-
mired, I regarded them with enraptured sym-
pathy.  I was particularly impressed with the old
gentleman's boots.  They were not the modern
pointed affairs, but were made of cheap leather,
squared-toed, and evidently built by the regimental
cobbler.  In order that his daughter might dress
and go out in society, he did not buy fashionable
boots, but wore home-made ones, I thought, and
his square toes seemed to me most touching.  It
was obvious that in his time he had been a good
dancer; but now he was too heavy, and his legs had
not spring enough for all the beautiful steps he
tried to take.  Still, he contrived to go twice round
the room.  When at the end, standing with legs
apart, he suddenly clicked his feet together and fell
on one knee, a bit heavily, and she danced grace-
fully around him, smiling and adjusting her skirt,
the whole room applauded.

"Rising with an effort, he tenderly took his
daughter's face between his hands.  He kissed her
on the forehead, and brought her to me, under the
impression that I was her partner for the mazurka. 
I said I was not.  'Well, never mind. just go
around the room once with her,' he said, smil-
ing kindly, as he replaced his sword in the
sheath.

"As the contents of a bottle flow readily when
the first drop has been poured, so my love for
Varinka seemed to set free the whole force of lov-
ing within me.  In surrounding her it embraced the
world.  I loved the hostess with her diadem and
her shoulders like Elizabeth, and her husband and
her guests and her footmen, and even the engineer
Anisimov who felt peevish towards me.  As for
Varinka's father, with his home-made boots and
his kind smile, so like her own, I felt a sort of ten-
derness for him that was almost rapture.

"After supper I danced the promised quadrille
with her, and though I had been infinitely happy
before, I grew still happier every moment.

"We did not speak of love.  I neither asked
myself nor her whether she loved me.  It was
quite enough to know that I loved her.  And I had
only one fear--that something might come to in-
terfere with my great joy.

"When I went home, and began to undress for
the night, I found it quite out of the question.
held the little feather out of her fan in my hand,
and one of her gloves which she gave me when I
helped her into the carriage after her mother. 
Looking at these things, and without closing my
eyes I could see her before me as she was for an
instant when she had to choose between two part-
ners.  She tried to guess what kind of person
was represented in me, and I could hear her
sweet voice as she said, 'Pride--am I right?' and
merrily gave me her hand.  At supper she took the
first sip from my glass of champagne, looking at
me over the rim with her caressing glance.  But,
plainest of all, I could see her as she danced with
her father, gliding along beside him, and looking
at the admiring observers with pride and happi-
ness.

"He and she were united in my mind in one
rush of pathetic tenderness.

"I was living then with my brother, who has
since died.  He disliked going out, and never went
to dances; and besides, he was busy preparing for
his last university examinations, and was leading a
very regular life.  He was asleep.  I looked at
him, his head buried in the pillow and half covered
with the quilt; and I affectionately pitied him,
pitied him for his ignorance of the bliss I was ex-
periencing.  Our serf Petrusha had met me with a
candle, ready to undress me, but I sent him away. 
His sleepy face and tousled hair seemed to me so
touching.  Trying not to make a noise, I went to
my room on tiptoe and sat down on my bed.  No,
I was too happy; I could not sleep.  Besides, it
was too hot in the rooms.  Without taking off my
uniform, I went quietly into the hall, put on my
overcoat, opened the front door and stepped out
into the street.

"It was after four when I had left the ball;
going home and stopping there a while had occu-
pied two hours, so by the time I went out it was
dawn.  It was regular carnival weather--foggy,
and the road full of water-soaked snow just melt-
ing, and water dripping from the eaves.  Varin-
ka's family lived on the edge of town near a large
field, one end of which was a parade ground:  at
the other end was a boarding-school for young
ladies.  I passed through our empty little street
and came to the main thoroughfare, where I met
pedestrians and sledges laden with wood, the run-
ners grating the road.  The horses swung with
regular paces beneath their shining yokes, their
backs covered with straw mats and their heads wet
with rain; while the drivers, in enormous boots,
splashed through the mud beside the sledges.  All
this, the very horses themselves, seemed to me
stimulating and fascinating, full of suggestion.

"When I approached the field near their house,
I saw at one end of it, in the direction of the pa-
rade ground, something very huge and black, and
I heard sounds of fife and drum proceeding from
it. My heart had been full of song, and I had
heard in imagination the tune of the mazurka,
but this was very harsh music.  It was not pleas-
ant.

"'What can that be?' I thought, and went
towards the sound by a slippery path through the
centre of the field.  Walking about a hundred
paces, I began to distinguish many black objects
through the mist.  They were evidently soldiers.
'It is probably a drill,' I thought.

"So I went along in that direction in company
with a blacksmith, who wore a dirty coat and an
apron, and was carrying something.  He walked
ahead of me as we approached the place.  The
soldiers in black uniforms stood in two rows, fac-
ing each other motionless, their guns at rest.  Be-
hind them stood the fifes and drums, incessantly
repeating the same unpleasant tune.

"'What are they doing?' I asked the black-
smith, who halted at my side.

"'A Tartar is being beaten through the ranks
for his attempt to desert,' said the blacksmith in
an angry tone, as he looked intently at the far end
of the line.

"I looked in the same direction, and saw be-
tween the files something horrid approaching me. 
The thing that approached was a man, stripped
to the waist, fastened with cords to the guns of two
soldiers who were leading him.  At his side an
officer in overcoat and cap was walking, whose
figure had a familiar look.  The victim advanced
under the blows that rained upon him from both
sides, his whole body plunging, his feet dragging
through the snow.  Now he threw himself back-
ward, and the subalterns who led him thrust him
forward.  Now he fell forward, and they pulled
him up short; while ever at his side marched the
tall officer, with firm and nervous pace.  It was
Varinka's father, with his rosy face and white
moustache.

"At each stroke the man, as if amazed, turned
his face, grimacing with pain, towards the side
whence the blow came, and showing his white teeth
repeated the same words over and over.  But I
could only hear what the words were when he came
quite near.  He did not speak them, he sobbed
them out,--

"'Brothers, have mercy on me! Brothers, have
mercy on me!' But the brothers had, no mercy,
and when the procession came close to me, I saw
how a soldier who stood opposite me took a firm
step forward and lifting his stick with a whirr,
brought it down upon the man's back.  The man
plunged forward, but the subalterns pulled him
back, and another blow came down from the other
side, then from this side and then from the other. 
The colonel marched beside him, and looking now
at his feet and now at the man, inhaled the air,
puffed out his cheeks, and breathed it out between
his protruded lips.  When they passed the place
where I stood, I caught a glimpse between the two
files of the back of the man that was being pun-
ished.  It was something so many-coloured, wet,
red, unnatural, that I could hardly believe it was a
human body.

"'My God!' muttered the blacksmith.

The procession moved farther away.  The
blows continued to rain upon the writhing, falling
creature; the fifes shrilled and the drums beat, and
the tall imposing figure of the colonel moved along-
side the man, just as before.  Then, suddenly, the
colonel stopped, and rapidly approached a man in
the ranks.

"'I'll teach you to hit him gently,' I heard his
furious voice say.  'Will you pat him like that?
Will you?' and I saw how his strong hand in the
suede glove struck the weak, bloodless, terrified
soldier for not bringing down his stick with suffi-
cient strength on the red neck of the Tartar.

"'Bring new sticks!' he cried, and looking
round, he saw me.  Assuming an air of not know-
ing me, and with a ferocious, angry frown, he
hastily turned away.  I felt so utterly ashamed
that I didn't know where to look.  It was as if I
had been detected in a disgraceful act.  I dropped
my eyes, and quickly hurried home.  All the way
I had the drums beating and the fifes whistling in
my ears.  And I heard the words, 'Brothers, have
mercy on me!' or 'Will you pat him? Will
you?' My heart was full of physical disgust that
was almost sickness.  So much so that I halted sev-
eral times on my way, for I had the feeling that I
was going to be really sick from all the horrors
that possessed me at that sight.  I do not remem-
ber how I got home and got to bed.  But the mo-
ment I was about to fall asleep I heard and saw
again all that had happened, and I sprang up.

"'Evidently he knows something I do not
know,' I thought about the colonel.  'If I knew
what he knows I should certainly grasp--under-
stand--what I have just seen, and it would not
cause me such suffering.'

"But however much I thought about it, I could
not understand the thing that the colonel knew. 
It was evening before I could get to sleep, and then
only after calling on a friend and drinking till I;
was quite drunk.

"Do you think I had come to the conclusion that
the deed I had witnessed was wicked? Oh, no. 
Since it was done with such assurance, and was rec-
ognised by every one as indispensable, they doubt-
less knew something which I did not know.  So I
thought, and tried to understand.  But no matter,
I could never understand it, then or afterwards.
And not being able to grasp it, I could not enter
the service as I had intended.  I don't mean only
the military service:  I did not enter the Civil Serv-
ice either.  And so I have been of no use whatever,
as you can see."

"Yes, we know how useless you've been," said
one of us.  "Tell us, rather, how many people
would be of any use at all if it hadn't been for
you."

"Oh, that's utter nonsense," said Ivan Vasilie-
vich, with genuine annoyance.

"Well; and what about the love affair?

"My love? It decreased from that day. 
When, as often happened, she looked dreamy and
meditative, I instantly recollected the colonel on
the parade ground, and I felt so awkward and
uncomfortable that I began to see her less fre-
quently.  So my love came to naught.  Yes; such
chances arise, and they alter and direct a man's
whole  life," he said in summing up.  "And you
say . . ."




ALYOSHA THE POT




ALYOSHA THE POT

ALYOSHA was the younger brother.  He was
called the Pot, because his mother had once sent
him with a pot of milk to the deacon's wife, and he
had stumbled against something and broken it. 
His mother had beaten him, and the children had
teased him.  Since then he was nicknamed the Pot. 
Alyosha was a tiny, thin little fellow, with ears like
wings, and a huge nose.  "Alyosha has a nose that
looks like a dog on a hill!" the children used to
call after him.  Alyosha went to the village
school, but was not good at lessons; besides, there
was so little time to learn.  His elder brother was
in town, working for a merchant, so Alyosha had
to help his father from a very early age.  When
he was no more than six he used to go out with the
girls to watch the cows and sheep in the pasture,
and a little later he looked after the horses by
day and by night.  And at twelve years of age he
had already begun to plough and to drive the cart. 
The skill was there though the strength was not. 
He was always cheerful.  Whenever the children
made fun of him, he would either laugh or be
silent.  When his father scolded him he would
stand mute and listen attentively, and as soon as
the scolding was over would smile and go on with
his work.  Alyosha was nineteen when his brother
was taken as a soldier.  So his father placed him
with the merchant as a yard-porter.  He was given
his brother's old boots, his father's old coat and
cap, and was taken to town.  Alyosha was de-
lighted with his clothes, but the merchant was not
impressed by his appearance.

"I thought you would bring me a man in Sime-
on's place," he said, scanning Alyosha; "and
you've brought me THIS!  What's the good of
him?"

"He can do everything; look after horses and
drive.  He's a good one to work.  He looks
rather thin, but he's tough enough.  And he's very
willing."

"He looks it.  All right; we'll see what we can
do with him."

So Alyosha remained at the merchant's.

The family was not a large one.  It consisted
of the merchant's wife:  her old mother:  a married
son poorly educated who was in his father's busi-
ness:  another son, a learned one who had finished
school and entered the University, but having been
expelled, was living at home:  and a daughter who
still went to school.

They did not take to Alyosha at first.  He was
uncouth, badly dressed, and had no manner, but
they soon got used to him.  Alyosha worked even
better than his brother had done; he was really
very willing.  They sent him on all sorts of er-
rands, but he did everything quickly and readily,
going from one task to another without stopping. 
And so here, just as at home, all the work was put
upon his shoulders.  The more he did, the more
he was given to do.  His mistress, her old mother,
the son, the daughter, the clerk, and the cook--all
ordered him about, and sent him from one place
to another.

"Alyosha, do this! Alyosha, do that!
What! have you forgotten, Alyosha? Mind you
don't forget, Alyosha!" was heard from morning
till night.  And Alyosha ran here, looked after this
and that, forgot nothing, found time for every-
thing, and was always cheerful.

His brother's old boots were soon worn out,
and his master scolded him for going about in tat-
ters with his toes sticking out.  He ordered an-
other pair to be bought for him in the market. 
Alyosha was delighted with his new boots, but was
angry with his feet when they ached at the end of
the day after so much running about.  And then
he was afraid that his father would be annoyed
when he came to town for his wages, to find that
his master had deducted the cost of the boots.

In the winter Alyosha used to get up before day-
break.  He would chop the wood, sweep the yard,
feed the cows and horses, light the stoves, clean
the boots, prepare the samovars and polish them
afterwards; or the clerk would get him to bring
up the goods; or the cook would set him to knead
the bread and clean the saucepans.  Then he was
sent to town on various errands, to bring the
daughter home from school, or to get some olive
oil for the old mother.  "Why the devil have
you been so long?" first one, then another, would
say to him.  Why should they go? Alyosha can
go. "Alyosha! Alyosha!" And Alyosha ran
here and there.  He breakfasted in snatches while
he was working, and rarely managed to get his
dinner at the proper hour.  The cook used to scold
him for being late, but she was sorry for him all
the same, and would keep something hot for his
dinner and supper.

At holiday times there was more work than ever,
but Alyosha liked holidays because everybody gave
him a tip.  Not much certainly, but it would
amount up to about sixty kopeks [1s 2d]--his
very own money.  For Alyosha never set eyes on
his wages.  His father used to come and take them
from the merchant, and only scold Alyosha for
wearing out his boots.

When he had saved up two roubles [4s], by the
advice of the cook he bought himself a red knitted
jacket, and was so happy when he put it on, that
he couldn't close his mouth for joy.  Alyosha was
not talkative; when he spoke at all, he spoke
abruptly, with his head turned away.  When told
to do anything, or asked if he could do it, he would
say yes without the smallest hesitation, and set to
work at once.

Alyosha did not know any prayer; and had for-
gotten what his mother had taught him.  But he
prayed just the same, every morning and every
evening, prayed with his hands, crossing himself.

He lived like this for about a year and a half,
and towards the end of the second year a most
startling thing happened to him.  He discovered
one day, to his great surprise, that, in addition to
the relation of usefulness existing between people,
there was also another, a peculiar relation of quite
a different character.  Instead of a man being
wanted to clean boots, and go on errands and har-
ness horses, he is not wanted to be of any service
at all, but another human being wants to serve him
and pet him.  Suddenly Alyosha felt he was such
a man.

He made this discovery through the cook Us-
tinia.  She was young, had no parents, and worked
as hard as Alyosha.  He felt for the first time in
his life that he--not his services, but he himself
--was necessary to another human being.  When
his mother used to be sorry for him, he had taken
no notice of her.  It had seemed to him quite
natural, as though he were feeling sorry for him-
self.  But here was Ustinia, a perfect stranger,
and sorry for him.  She would save him some hot
porridge, and sit watching him, her chin propped
on her bare arm, with the sleeve rolled up, while he
was eating it.  When he looked at her she would
begin to laugh, and he would laugh too.

This was such a new, strange thing to him that
it frightened Alyosha.  He feared that it might
interfere with his work.  But he was pleased, nev-
ertheless, and when he glanced at the trousers that
Ustinia had mended for him, he would shake
his head and smile.  He would often think of her
while at work, or when running on errands.  "A
fine girl, Ustinia!" he sometimes exclaimed.

Ustinia used to help him whenever she could,
and he helped her.  She told him all about her
life; how she had lost her parents; how her aunt
had taken her in and found a place for her in the
town; how the merchant's son had tried to take lib-
erties with her, and how she had rebuffed him. 
She liked to talk, and Alyosha liked to listen to her. 
He had heard that peasants who came up to work
in the towns frequently got married to servant
girls.  On one occasion she asked him if his par-
ents intended marrying him soon.  He said that
he did not know; that he did not want to marry
any of the village girls.

"Have you taken a fancy to some one, then?"

"I would marry you, if you'd be willing."

"Get along with you, Alyosha the Pot; but
you've found your tongue, haven't you?" she ex-
claimed, slapping him on the back with a towel she
held in her hand.  "Why shouldn't I?"

At Shrovetide Alyosha's father came to town for
his wages.  It had come to the ears of the mer-
chant's wife that Alyosha wanted to marry Ustinia,
and she disapproved of it.  "What will be the
use of her with a baby?" she thought, and in-
formed her husband.

The merchant gave the old man Alyosha's
wages.

"How is my lad getting on?" he asked.  "I
told you he was willing."

"That's all right, as far as it goes, but he's
taken some sort of nonsense into his head.  He
wants to marry our cook.  Now I don't approve
of married servants.  We won't have them in the
house."

"Well, now, who would have thought the fool
would think of such a thing?" the old man ex-
claimed.  "But don't you worry.  I'll soon settle
that."

He went into the kitchen, and sat down at
the table waiting for his son.  Alyosha was out
on an errand, and came back breathless.

"I thought you had some sense in you; but
what's this you've taken into your head?" his
father began.

"I? Nothing."

"How, nothing? They tell me you want to
get married.  You shall get married when the time
comes.  I'll find you a decent wife, not some town
hussy."

His father talked and talked, while Alyosha
stood still and sighed.  When his father had quite
finished, Alyosha smiled.

"All right.  I'll drop it."

"Now that's what I call sense."

When he was left alone with Ustinia he told her
what his father had said.  (She had listened at
the door.)

"It's no good; it can't come off.  Did you hear?
He was angry--won't have it at any price."

Ustinia cried into her apron.

Alyosha shook his head.

"What's to be done? We must do as we're
told."

"Well, are you going to give up that nonsense,
as your father told you?" his mistress asked, as
he was putting up the shutters in the evening.

"To be sure we are," Alyosha replied with a
smile, and then burst into tears.


From that day Alyosha went about his work as
usual, and no longer talked to Ustinia about their
getting married.  One day in Lent the clerk told
him to clear the snow from the roof.  Alyosha
climbed on to the roof and swept away all the
snow; and, while he was still raking out some
frozen lumps from the gutter, his foot slipped and
he fell over.  Unfortunately he did not fall on the
snow, but on a piece of iron over the door.  Us-
tinia came running up, together with the mer-
chant's daughter.

"Have you hurt yourself, Alyosha?"

"Ah! no, it's nothing."

But he could not raise himself when he tried
to, and began to smile.

He was taken into the lodge.  The doctor ar-
rived, examined him, and asked where he felt the
pain.

"I feel it all over," he said.  "But it doesn't
matter.  I'm only afraid master will be annoyed. 
Father ought to be told."

Alyosha lay in bed for two days, and on the third
day they sent for the priest.

"Are you really going to die?" Ustinia asked. 

"Of course I am.  You can't go on living for
ever.  You must go when the time comes "  Aly-
osha spoke rapidly as usual.  "Thank you, Us-
tinia.  You've been very good to me.  What a
lucky thing they didn't let us marry! Where
should we have been now? It's much better as it
is."

When the priest came, he prayed with his bands
and with his heart.  "As it is good here when you
obey and do no harm to others, so it will be there,"
was the thought within it.

He spoke very little; he only said he was thirsty,
and he seemed full of wonder at something.

He lay in wonderment, then stretched himself,
and died.




MY DREAM




MY DREAM

"As a daughter she no longer exists for me. 
Can't you understand? She simply doesn't ex-
ist.  Still, I cannot possibly leave her to the char-
ity of strangers.  I will arrange things so that
she can live as she pleases, but I do not wish to
hear of her.  Who would ever have thought
. . . the horror of it, the horror of it."

He shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, and
raised his eyes.  These words were spoken by
Prince Michael Ivanovich to his brother Peter,
who was governor of a province in Central Rus-
sia.  Prince Peter was a man of fifty, Michael's
junior by ten years.

On discovering that his daughter, who had left
his house a year before, had settled here with her
child, the elder brother had come from St. Peters-
burg to the provincial town, where the above con-
versation took place.

Prince Michael Ivanovich was a tall, handsome,
white-haired, fresh coloured man, proud and at-
tractive in appearance and bearing.  His family
consisted of a vulgar, irritable wife, who wran-
gled with him continually over every petty detail,
a son, a ne'er-do-well, spendthrift and roue--
yet a "gentleman," according to his father's code,
two daughters, of whom the elder had married
well, and was living in St. Petersburg; and the
younger, Lisa--his favourite, who had disap-
peared from home a year before.  Only a short
while ago he had found her with her child in this
provincial town.

Prince Peter wanted to ask his brother how,
and under what circumstances, Lisa had left
home, and who could possibly be the father of her
child.  But he could not make up his mind to in-
quire.

That very morning, when his wife had at-
tempted to condole with her brother-in-law, Prince
Peter had observed a look of pain on his brother's
face.  The look had at once been masked by an
expression of unapproachable pride, and he had
begun to question her about their flat, and the
price she paid.  At luncheon, before the family
and guests, he had been witty and sarcastic as
usual.  Towards every one, excepting the chil-
dren, whom he treated with almost reverent ten-
derness, he adopted an attitude of distant hauteur.
And yet it was so natural to him that every one
somehow acknowledged his right to be haughty.

In the evening his brother arranged a game of
whist.  When he retired to the room which had
been made ready for him, and was just beginning
to take out his artificial teeth, some one tapped
lightly on the door with two fingers.

"Who is that?"

"C'est moi, Michael."

Prince Michael Ivanovich recognised the voice
of his sister-in-law, frowned, replaced his teeth,
and said to himself, "What does she want?"
Aloud he said, "Entrez."

His sister-in-law was a quiet, gentle creature,
who bowed in submission to her husband's will. 
But to many she seemed a crank, and some did
not hesitate to call her a fool.  She was pretty,
but her hair was always carelessly dressed, and she
herself was untidy and absent-minded.  She had,
also, the strangest, most unaristocratic ideas, by no
means fitting in the wife of a high official.  These
ideas she would express most unexpectedly, to
everybody's astonishment, her husband's no less
than her friends'.

"Fous pouvez me renvoyer, mais je ne m'en
irai pas, je vous le dis d'avance," she began, in her
characteristic, indifferent way.

"Dieu preserve," answered her brother-in-law,
with his usual somewhat exaggerated politeness,
and brought forward a chair for her.

"Ca ne vous derange pas?" she asked, taking
out a cigarette.  "I'm not going to say anything
unpleasant, Michael.  I only wanted to say some-
thing about Lisochka."

Michael Ivanovich sighed--the word pained
him; but mastering himself at once, he answered
with a tired smile.  "Our conversation can only
be on one subject, and that is the subject you wish
to discuss "  He spoke without looking at her,
and avoided even naming the subject.  But his
plump, pretty little sister-in-law was unabashed. 
She continued to regard him with the same gentle,
imploring look in her blue eyes, sighing even more
deeply.

"Michael, mon bon ami, have pity on her. 
She is only human."

"I never doubted that," said Michael Ivano-
vich with a bitter smile.

"She is your daughter."

"She was--but my dear Aline, why talk about
this?"

"Michael, dear, won't you see her? I only
wanted to say, that the one who is to blame--"

Prince Michael Ivanovich flushed; his face be-
came cruel.

"For heaven's sake, let us stop.  I have suf-
fered enough.  I have now but one desire, and
that is to put her in such a position that she will
be independent of others, and that she shall have
no further need of communicating with me.  Then
she can live her own life, and my family and I
need know nothing more about her.  That is all
I can do."

"Michael, you say nothing but 'I'! She, too,
is 'I.'"

"No doubt; but, dear Aline, please let us drop
the matter.  I feel it too deeply."

Alexandra Dmitrievna remained silent for a
few moments, shaking her head.  "And Masha,
your wife, thinks as you do?"

"Yes, quite."

Alexandra Dmitrievna made an inarticulate
sound.

"Brisons la dessus et bonne nuit," said he. 
But she did not go.  She stood silent a moment. 
Then,--

"Peter tells me you intend to leave the money
with the woman where she lives.  Have you the
address?"

"I have."

"Don't leave it with the woman, Michael!
Go yourself.  Just see how she lives.  If you
don't want to see her, you need not.  HE isn't
there; there is no one there."

Michael Ivanovich shuddered violently.

"Why do you torture me so? It's a sin
against hospitality!"

Alexandra Dmitrievna rose, and almost in
tears, being touched by her own pleading, said,
"She is so miserable, but she is such a dear."

He got up, and stood waiting for her to finish. 
She held out her hand.

"Michael, you do wrong," said she, and left
him.

For a long while after she had gone Michael
Ivanovich walked to and fro on the square of
carpet.  He frowned and shivered, and ex-
claimed, "Oh, oh!" And then the sound of his
own voice frightened him, and he was silent.

His wounded pride tortured him.  His daugh-
ter--his--brought up in the house of her
mother, the famous Avdotia Borisovna, whom the
Empress honoured with her visits, and acquaint-
ance with whom was an honour for all the world!
His daughter--; and he had lived his life as a
knight of old, knowing neither fear nor blame. 
The fact that he had a natural son born of a
Frenchwoman, whom he had settled abroad, did
not lower his own self-esteem.  And now this
daughter, for whom he had not only done every-
thing that a father could and should do; this
daughter to whom he had given a splendid educa-
tion and every opportunity to make a match in the
best Russian society--this daughter to whom he
had not only given all that a girl could desire, but
whom he had really LOVED; whom he had admired,
been proud of--this daughter had repaid him
with such disgrace, that he was ashamed and could
not face the eyes of men!

He recalled the time when she was not merely
his child, and a member of his family, but his
darling, his joy and his pride.  He saw her again,
a little thing of eight or nine, bright, intelligent,
lively, impetuous, graceful, with brilliant black
eyes and flowing auburn hair.  He remembered
how she used to jump up on his knees and hug
him, and tickle his neck; and how she would laugh,
regardless of his protests, and continue to tickle
him, and kiss his lips, his eyes, and his cheeks. 
He was naturally opposed to all demonstration,
but this impetuous love moved him, and he often
submitted to her petting.  He remembered also
how sweet it was to caress her.  To remember
all this, when that sweet child had become what
she now was, a creature of whom he could not
think without loathing.

He also recalled the time when she was growing
into womanhood, and the curious feeling of fear
and anger that he experienced when he became
aware that men regarded her as a woman.  He
thought of his jealous love when she came coquet-
tishly to him dressed for a ball, and knowing that
she was pretty.  He dreaded the passionate
glances which fell upon her, that she not only did
not understand but rejoiced in.  "Yes," thought
he, "that superstition of woman's purity!  Quite
the contrary, they do not know shame--they lack
this sense "  He remembered how, quite inexpli-
cably to him, she had refused two very good suit-
ors.  She had become more and more fascinated
by her own success in the round of gaieties she
lived in.

But this success could not last long.  A year
passed, then two, then three.  She was a familiar
figure, beautiful--but her first youth had passed,
and she had become somehow part of the ball-
room furniture.  Michael Ivanovich remembered
how he had realised that she was on the road to
spinsterhood, and desired but one thing for her. 
He must get her married off as quickly as possible,
perhaps not quite so well as might have been ar-
ranged earlier, but still a respectable match.

But it seemed to him she had behaved with a
pride that bordered on insolence.  Remembering
this, his anger rose more and more fiercely against
her.  To think of her refusing so many decent
men, only to end in this disgrace.  "Oh, oh!" he
groaned again.

Then stopping, he lit a cigarette, and tried to
think of other things.  He would send her money,
without ever letting her see him.  But memories
came again.  He remembered--it was not so
very long ago, for she was more than twenty then
--her beginning a flirtation with a boy of four-
teen, a cadet of the Corps of Pages who had been
staying with them in the country.  She had driven
the boy half crazy; he had wept in his distraction. 
Then how she had rebuked her father severely,
coldly, and even rudely, when, to put an end to
this stupid affair, he had sent the boy away.  She
seemed somehow to consider herself insulted. 
Since then father and daughter had drifted into
undisguised hostility.

"I was right," he said to himself.  "She is a
wicked and shameless woman."

And then, as a last ghastly memory, there was
the letter from Moscow, in which she wrote that
she could not return home; that she was a miser-
able, abandoned woman, asking only to be for-
given and forgotten.  Then the horrid recollec-
tion of the scene with his wife came to him; their
surmises and their suspicions, which became a cer-
tainty.  The calamity had happened in Finland,
where they had let her visit her aunt; and the
culprit was an insignificant Swede, a student, an
empty-headed, worthless creature--and married.

All this came back to him now as he paced
backwards and forwards on the bedroom carpet,
recollecting his former love for her, his pride in
her.  He recoiled with terror before the incom-
prehensible fact of her downfall, and he hated her
for the agony she was causing him.  He remem-
bered the conversation with his sister-in-law, and
tried to imagine how he might forgive her.  But
as soon as the thought of "him" arose, there
surged up in his heart horror, disgust, and wounded
pride.  He groaned aloud, and tried to think of
something else.

"No, it is impossible; I will hand over the
money to Peter to give her monthly.  And as for
me, I have no longer a daughter."

And again a curious feeling overpowered him:
a mixture of self-pity at the recollection of his
love for her, and of fury against her for causing
him this anguish.


II

DURING the last year Lisa had without doubt
lived through more than in all the preceding
twenty-five.  Suddenly she had realised the empti-
ness of her whole life.  It rose before her, base
and sordid--this life at home and among the rich
set in St. Petersburg--this animal existence that
never sounded the depths, but only touched the
shallows of life.

It was well enough for a year or two, or per-
haps even three.  But when it went on for seven
or eight years, with its parties, balls, concerts,
and suppers; with its costumes and coiffures to
display the charms of the body; with its adorers
old and young, all alike seemingly possessed of
some unaccountable right to have everything, to
laugh at everything; and with its summer months
spent in the same way, everything yielding but a
superficial pleasure, even music and reading merely
touching upon life's problems, but never solving
them--all this holding out no promise of change,
and losing its charm more and more--she began
to despair.  She had desperate moods when she
longed to die.

Her friends directed her thoughts to charity. 
On the one hand, she saw poverty which was real
and repulsive, and a sham poverty even more re-
pulsive and pitiable; on the other, she saw the ter-
rible indifference of the lady patronesses who came
in carriages and gowns worth thousands.  Life
became to her more and more unbearable.  She
yearned for something real, for life itself--not
this playing at living, not this skimming life of its
cream.  Of real life there was none.  The best
of her memories was her love for the little cadet
Koko.  That had been a good, honest, straight-
forward impulse, and now there was nothing like
it. There could not be.  She grew more and
more depressed, and in this gloomy mood she
went to visit an aunt in Finland.  The fresh
scenery and surroundings, the people strangely
different to her own, appealed to her at any rate
as a new experience.

How and when it all began she could not
clearly remember.  Her aunt had another guest,
a Swede.  He talked of his work, his people, the
latest Swedish novel.  Somehow, she herself did
not know how that terrible fascination of glances
and smiles began, the meaning of which cannot be
put into words.

These smiles and glances seemed to reveal to
each, not only the soul of the other, but some
vital and universal mystery.  Every word they
spoke was invested by these smiles with a pro-
found and wonderful significance.  Music, too,
when they were listening together, or when they
sang duets, became full of the same deep meaning. 
So, also, the words in the books they read aloud. 
Sometimes they would argue, but the moment
their eyes met, or a smile flashed between them,
the discussion remained far behind.  They soared
beyond it to some higher plane consecrated to
themselves.

How it had come about, how and when the
devil, who had seized hold of them both, first
appeared behind these smiles and glances, she
could not say.  But, when terror first seized her,
the invisible threads that bound them were already
so interwoven that she had no power to tear her-
self free.  She could only count on him and on
his honour.  She hoped that he would not make
use of his power; yet all the while she vaguely de-
sired it.

Her weakness was the greater, because she had
nothing to support her in the struggle.  She was
weary of society life and she had no affection for
her mother.  Her father, so she thought, had
cast her away from him, and she longed passion-
ately to live and to have done with play.  Love,
the perfect love of a woman for a man, held the
promise of life for her.  Her strong, passionate
nature, too, was dragging her thither.  In the tall,
strong figure of this man, with his fair hair and
light upturned moustache, under which shone a
smile attractive and compelling, she saw the prom-
ise of that life for which she longed.  And then
the smiles and glances, the hope of something so
incredibly beautiful, led, as they were bound to
lead, to that which she feared but unconsciously
awaited.

Suddenly all that was beautiful, joyous, spir-
itual, and full of promise for the future, became
animal and sordid, sad and despairing.

She looked into his eyes and tried to smile,
pretending that she feared nothing, that every-
thing was as it should be; but deep down in her
soul she knew it was all over.  She understood
that she had not found in him what she had
sought; that which she had once known in herself
and in Koko.  She told him that he must write to
her father asking her hand in marriage.  This he
promised to do; but when she met him next he said
it was impossible for him to write just then.  She
saw something vague and furtive in his eyes, and
her distrust of him grew.  The following day he
wrote to her, telling her that he was already mar-
ried, though his wife had left him long since;
that he knew she would despise him for the wrong
he had done her, and implored her forgiveness. 
She made him come to see her.  She said she
loved him; that she felt herself bound to him for
ever whether he was married or not, and would
never leave him.  The next time they met he told
her that he and his parents were so poor that he
could only offer her the meanest existence.  She
answered that she needed nothing, and was ready
to go with him at once wherever he wished.  He
endeavoured to dissuade her, advising her to wait;
and so she waited.  But to live on with this se-
cret, with occasional meetings, and merely cor-
responding with him, all hidden from her family,
was agonising, and she insisted again that he must
take her away.  At first, when she returned to St.
Petersburg, be wrote promising to come, and then
letters ceased and she knew no more of him.

She tried to lead her old life, but it was im-
possible.  She fell ill, and the efforts of the doc-
tors were unavailing; in her hopelessness she
resolved to kill herself.  But how was she to do
this, so that her death might seem natural? She
really desired to take her life, and imagined that
she had irrevocably decided on the step.  So, ob-
taining some poison, she poured it into a glass,
and in another instant would have drunk it, had
not her sister's little son of five at that very mo-
ment run in to show her a toy his grandmother had
given him.  She caressed the child, and, suddenly
stopping short, burst into tears.

The thought overpowered her that she, too,
might have been a mother had he not been mar-
ried, and this vision of motherhood made her look
into her own soul for the first time.  She began to
think not of what others would say of her, but of
her own life.  To kill oneself because of what
the world might say was easy; but the moment she
saw her own life dissociated from the world, to
take that life was out of the question.  She threw
away the poison, and ceased to think of sui-
cide.

Then her life within began.  It was real life,
and despite the torture of it, had the possibility
been given her, she would not have turned back
from it.  She began to pray, but there was no
comfort in prayer; and her suffering was less for
herself than for her father, whose grief she fore-
saw and understood.

Thus months dragged along, and then some-
thing happened which entirely transformed her
life.  One day, when she was at work upon a
quilt, she suddenly experienced a strange sensa-
tion.  No--it seemed impossible.  Motionless
she sat with her work in hand.  Was it possi-
ble that this was IT.  Forgetting everything, his
baseness and deceit, her mother's querulousness,
and her father's sorrow, she smiled.  She shud-
dered at the recollection that she was on the point
of killing it, together with herself.

She now directed all her thoughts to getting
away--somewhere where she could bear her
child--and become a miserable, pitiful mother,
but a mother withal.  Somehow she planned and
arranged it all, leaving her home and settling in a
distant provincial town, where no one could find
her, and where she thought she would be far from
her people.  But, unfortunately, her father's
brother received an appointment there, a thing she
could not possibly foresee.  For four months she
had been living in the house of a midwife--one
Maria Ivanovna; and, on learning that her uncle
had come to the town, she was preparing to fly to
a still remoter hiding-place.


III

MICHAEL IVANOVICH awoke early next morning. 
He entered his brother's study, and handed him
the cheque, filled in for a sum which he asked him
to pay in monthly instalments to his daughter. 
He inquired when the express left for St. Peters-
burg.  The train left at seven in the evening,
giving him time for an early dinner before leav-
ing.  He breakfasted with his sister-in-law, who
refrained from mentioning the subject which was
so painful to him, but only looked at him timidly;
and after breakfast he went out for his regular
morning walk.

Alexandra Dmitrievna followed him into the
hall.

"Go into the public gardens, Michael--it is
very charming there, and quite near to Every-
thing," said she, meeting his sombre looks with a
pathetic glance.

Michael Ivanovich followed her advice and
went to the public gardens, which were so near to
Everything, and meditated with annoyance on the
stupidity, the obstinacy, and heartlessness of
women.

"She is not in the very least sorry for me," he
thought of his sister-in-law.  "She cannot even
understand my sorrow.  And what of her?"
He was thinking of his daughter.  "She knows
what all this means to me--the torture.  What
a blow in one's old age! My days will be short-
ened by it!  But I'd rather have it over than
endure this agony.  And all that 'pour les beaux
yeux d'un chenapan'--oh!" he moaned; and a
wave of hatred and fury arose in him as he
thought of what would be said in the town when
every one knew.  (And no doubt every one knew
already.)  Such a feeling of rage possessed him
that he would have liked to beat it into her head,
and make her understand what she had done. 
These women never understand.  "It is quite
near Everything," suddenly came to his mind, and
getting out his notebook, he found her address. 
Vera Ivanovna Silvestrova, Kukonskaya Street,
Abromov's house.  She was living under this
name.  He left the gardens and called a cab.

"Whom do you wish to see, sir?" asked the
midwife, Maria Ivanovna, when he stepped on
the narrow landing of the steep, stuffy staircase.

"Does Madame Silvestrova live here?"

"Vera Ivanovna? Yes; please come in.  She
has gone out; she's gone to the shop round the
corner.  But she'll be back in a minute."

Michael Ivanovich followed the stout figure of
Maria Ivanovna into a tiny parlour, and from the
next room came the screams of a baby, sounding
cross and peevish, which filled him with disgust. 
They cut him like a knife.

Maria Ivanovna apologised, and went into the
room, and he could hear her soothing the child.
The child became quiet, and she returned.

"That is her baby; she'll be back in a minute. 
You are a friend of hers, I suppose?"

"Yes--a friend--but I think I had better
come back later on," said Michael Ivanovich, pre-
paring to go.  It was too unbearable, this prep-
aration to meet her, and any explanation seemed
impossible.

He had just turned to leave, when he heard
quick, light steps on the stairs, and he recognised
Lisa's voice.

"Maria Ivanovna--has he been crying while
I've been gone--I was--"

Then she saw her father.  The parcel she was
carrying fell from her hands.

"Father!" she cried, and stopped in the door-
way, white and trembling.

He remained motionless, staring at her.  She
had grown so thin.  Her eyes were larger, her
nose sharper, her hands worn and bony.  He
neither knew what to do, nor what to say.  He
forgot all his grief about his dishonour.  He only
felt sorrow, infinite sorrow for her; sorrow for
her thinness, and for her miserable rough cloth-
ing; and most of all, for her pitiful face and im-
ploring eyes.

"Father--forgive," she said, moving towards
him.

"Forgive--forgive me," he murmured; and
he began to sob like a child, kissing her face and
hands, and wetting them with his tears.

In his pity for her he understood himself.  And
when he saw himself as he was, he realised how
he had wronged her, how guilty he had been in
his pride, in his coldness, even in his anger towards
her.  He was glad that it was he who was guilty,
and that he had nothing to forgive, but that he
himself needed forgiveness.  She took him to her
tiny room, and told him how she lived; but she
did not show him the child, nor did she mention
the past, knowing how painful it would be to him.

He told her that she must live differently.

"Yes; if I could only live in the country," said
she.

"We will talk it over," he said.  Suddenly
the child began to wail and to scream.  She
opened her eyes very wide; and, not taking them
from her father's face, remained hesitating and
motionless.

"Well--I suppose you must feed him," said
Michael Ivanovich, and frowned with the obvious
effort.

She got up, and suddenly the wild idea seized
her to show him whom she loved so deeply the
thing she now loved best of all in the world. 
But first she looked at her father's face.  Would
he be angry or not? His face revealed no anger,
only suffering.

"Yes, go, go," said he; "God bless you.  Yes. 
I'll come again to-morrow, and we will decide. 
Good-bye, my darling--good-bye "  Again he
found it hard to swallow the lump in his throat.

When Michael Ivanovich returned to his
brother's house, Alexandra Dmitrievna imme-
diately rushed to him.

"Well?"

"Well?  Nothing."

"Have you seen?" she asked, guessing from
his expression that something had happened.

"Yes," he answered shortly, and began to cry. 
"I'm getting old and stupid," said he, mastering
his emotion.

"No; you are growing wise--very wise."




THERE ARE NO GUILTY PEOPLE




THERE ARE NO GUILTY PEOPLE


I

MINE is a strange and wonderful lot! The
chances are that there is not a single wretched
beggar suffering under the luxury and oppression
of the rich who feels anything like as keenly as I
do either the injustice, the cruelty, and the horror
of their oppression of and contempt for the poor;
or the grinding humiliation and misery which
befall the great majority of the workers, the real
producers of all that makes life possible.  I have
felt this for a long time, and as the years have
passed by the feeling has grown and grown, until
recently it reached its climax.  Although I feel all
this so vividly, I still live on amid the depravity
and sins of rich society; and I cannot leave it,
because I have neither the knowledge nor the
strength to do so.  I cannot.  I do not know
how to change my life so that my physical needs
--food, sleep, clothing, my going to and fro--
may be satisfied without a sense of shame and
wrongdoing in the position which I fill.

There was a time when I tried to change my
position, which was not in harmony with my
conscience; but the conditions created by the past,
by my family and its claims upon me, were so
complicated that they would not let me out of
their grasp, or rather, I did not know how to free
myself.  I had not the strength.  Now that I am
over eighty and have become feeble, I have given
up trying to free myself; and, strange to say, as
my feebleness increases I realise more and more
strongly the wrongfulness of my position, and it
grows more and more intolerable to me.

It has occurred to me that I do not occupy this
position for nothing:  that Providence intended
that I should lay bare the truth of my feelings, so
that I might atone for all that causes my suffering,
and might perhaps open the eyes of those--or at
least of some of those--who are still blind to
what I see so clearly, and thus might lighten the
burden of that vast majority who, under existing
conditions, are subjected to bodily and spiritual
suffering by those who deceive them and also
deceive themselves.  Indeed, it may be that the
position which I occupy gives me special facilities
for revealing the artificial and criminal relations
which exist between men--for telling the whole
truth in regard to that position without confusing
the issue by attempting to vindicate myself, and
without rousing the envy of the rich and feelings
of oppression in the hearts of the poor and down-
trodden.  I am so placed that I not only have no
desire to vindicate myself; but, on the contrary, I
find it necessary to make an effort lest I should
exaggerate the wickedness of the great among
whom I live, of whose society I am ashamed,
whose attitude towards their fellow-men I detest
with my whole soul, though I find it impossible to
separate my lot from theirs.  But I must also
avoid the error of those democrats and others
who, in defending the oppressed and the enslaved,
do not see their failings and mistakes, and who do
not make sufficient allowance for the difficulties
created, the mistakes inherited from the past,
which in a degree lessens the responsibility of the
upper classes.

Free from desire for self-vindication, free from
fear of an emancipated people, free from that
envy and hatred which the oppressed feel for their
oppressors, I am in the best possible position to
see the truth and to tell it.  Perhaps that is why
Providence placed me in such a position.  I will
do my best to turn it to account.



II


Alexander Ivanovich Volgin, a bachelor and a
clerk in a Moscow bank at a salary of eight
thousand roubles a year, a man much respected in
his own set, was staying in a country-house.  His
host was a wealthy landowner, owning some
twenty-five hundred acres, and had married his
guest's cousin.  Volgin, tired after an evening
spent in playing vint* for small stakes with
[* A game of cards similar to auction bridge.]
members of the family, went to his room and placed
his watch, silver cigarette-case, pocket-book,
big leather purse, and pocket-brush and comb on a
small table covered with a white cloth, and then,
taking off his coat, waistcoat, shirt, trousers, and
underclothes, his silk socks and English boots, put
on his nightshirt and dressing-gown.  His watch
pointed to midnight.  Volgin smoked a cigarette,
lay on his face for about five minutes reviewing
the day's impressions; then, blowing out his
candle, he turned over on his side and fell asleep
about one o'clock, in spite of a good deal of rest-
lessness.  Awaking next morning at eight he put
on his slippers and dressing-gown, and rang the bell.

The old butler, Stephen, the father of a





family and the grandfather of six grandchildren,
who had served in that house for thirty years,
entered the room hurriedly, with bent legs, carry-
ing in the newly blackened boots which Volgin had
taken off the night before, a well-brushed suit, and
a clean shirt.  The guest thanked him, and then
asked what the weather was like (the blinds were
drawn so that the sun should not prevent any one
from sleeping till eleven o'clock if he were so
inclined), and whether his hosts had slept well. 
He glanced at his watch--it was still early--
and began to wash and dress.  His water was
ready, and everything on the washing-stand and
dressing-table was ready for use and properly laid
out--his soap, his tooth and hair brushes, his nail
scissors and files.  He washed his hands and face
in a leisurely fashion, cleaned and manicured his
nails, pushed back the skin with the towel, and
sponged his stout white body from head to foot. 
Then he began to brush his hair.  Standing in
front of the mirror, he first brushed his curly
beard, which was beginning to turn grey, with two
English brushes, parting it down the middle. 
Then he combed his hair, which was already show-
ing signs of getting thin, with a large tortoise-
shell comb.  Putting on his underlinen, his socks,
his boots, his trousers--which were held up by
elegant braces--and his waistcoat, he sat down
coatless in an easy chair to rest after dressing,
lit a cigarette, and began to think where he should go
for a walk that morning--to the park or to Lit-
tleports (what a funny name for a wood!).  He
thought he would go to Littleports.  Then he
must answer Simon Nicholaevich's letter; but
there was time enough for that.  Getting up with
an air of resolution, he took out his watch.  It
was already five minutes to nine.  He put his
watch into his waistcoat pocket, and his purse--
with all that was left of the hundred and eighty
roubles he had taken for his journey, and for the
incidental expenses of his fortnight's stay with
his cousin--and then he placed into his trouser
pocket his cigarette-case and electric cigarette-
lighter, and two clean handkerchiefs into his coat
pockets, and went out of the room, leaving as
usual the mess and confusion which he had made
to be cleared up by Stephen, an old man of over
fifty.  Stephen expected Volgin to "remunerate"
him, as he said, being so accustomed to the work
that he did not feel the slightest repugnance for it. 
Glancing at a mirror, and feeling satisfied with
his appearance, Volgin went into the dining-room.

There, thanks to the efforts of the housekeeper,
the footman, and under-butler--the latter had
risen at dawn in order to run home to sharpen his
son's scythe--breakfast was ready.  On a spot-
less white cloth stood a boiling, shiny, silver
samovar (at least it looked like silver), a coffee-
pot, hot milk, cream, butter, and all sorts of fancy
white bread and biscuits.  The only persons at
table were the second son of the house, his tutor
(a student), and the secretary.  The host, who
was an active member of the Zemstvo and a great
farmer, had already left the house, having gone
at eight o'clock to attend to his work.  Volgin,
while drinking his coffee, talked to the student
and the secretary about the weather, and yester-
day's vint, and discussed Theodorite's peculiar be-
haviour the night before, as he had been very
rude to his father without the slightest cause. 
Theodorite was the grown-up son of the house,
and a ne'er-do-well.  His name was Theodore,
but some one had once called him Theodorite
either as a joke or to tease him; and, as it seemed
funny, the name stuck to him, although his doings
were no longer in the least amusing.  So it was
now.  He had been to the university, but left it
in his second year, and joined a regiment of horse
guards; but he gave that up also, and was now
living in the country, doing nothing, finding fault,
and feeling discontented with everything.  Theo-
dorite was still in bed:  so were the other members
of the household--Anna Mikhailovna, its mis-
tress; her sister, the widow of a general; and a
landscape painter who lived with the family.

Volgin took his panama hat from the hall table
(it had cost twenty roubles) and his cane with its
carved ivory handle, and went out.  Crossing the
veranda, gay with flowers, he walked through the
flower garden, in the centre of which was a raised
round bed, with rings of red, white, and blue
flowers, and the initials of the mistress of the
house done in carpet bedding in the centre. 
Leaving the flower garden Volgin entered the
avenue of lime trees, hundreds of years old, which
peasant girls were tidying and sweeping with
spades and brooms.  The gardener was busy
measuring, and a boy was bringing something in
a cart.  Passing these Volgin went into the park
of at least a hundred and twenty-five acres,
filled with fine old trees, and intersected by a
network of well-kept walks.  Smoking as he
strolled Volgin took his favourite path past the
summer-house into the fields beyond.  It was
pleasant in the park, but it was still nicer in the
fields.  On the right some women who were dig-
ging potatoes formed a mass of bright red and
white colour; on the left were wheat fields, mead-
ows, and grazing cattle; and in the foreground,
slightly to the right, were the dark, dark oaks of
Littleports.  Volgin took a deep breath, and felt
glad that he was alive, especially here in his
cousin's home, where he was so thoroughly en-
joying the rest from his work at the bank.

"Lucky people to live in the country," he
thought.  "True, what with his farming and his
Zemstvo, the owner of the estate has very little
peace even in the country, but that is his own
lookout "  Volgin shook his head, lit another
cigarette, and, stepping out firmly with his power-
ful feet clad in his thick English boots, began to
think of the heavy winter's work in the bank that
was in front of him.  "I shall be there every day
from ten to two, sometimes even till five.  And
the board meetings . . .  And private inter-
views with clients. . . .  Then the Duma.
Whereas here. . . .  It is delightful.  It
may be a little dull, but it is not for long "  He
smiled.  After a stroll in Littleports he turned
back, going straight across a fallow field which
was being ploughed.  A herd of cows, calves,
sheep, and pigs, which belonged to the village
community, was grazing there.  The shortest
way to the park was to pass through the herd. 
He frightened the sheep, which ran away one
after another, and were followed by the pigs, of
which two little ones stared solemnly at him. 
The shepherd boy called to the sheep and cracked
his whip.  "How far behind Europe we are,"
thought Volgin, recalling his frequent holidays
abroad.  "You would not find a single cow like
that anywhere in Europe "  Then, wanting to
find out where the path which branched off from
the one he was on led to and who was the owner
of the herd, he called to the boy.

"Whose herd is it?"

The boy was so filled with wonder, verging on
terror, when he gazed at the hat, the well-brushed
beard, and above all the gold-rimmed eyeglasses,
that he could not reply at once.  When Volgin
repeated his question the boy pulled himself to-
gether, and said, "Ours."  "But whose is
'ours'?" said Volgin, shaking his head and
smiling.  The boy was wearing shoes of plaited
birch bark, bands of linen round his legs, a dirty,
unbleached shirt ragged at the shoulder, and a cap
the peak of which had been torn.

"Whose is 'ours'?"

"The Pirogov village herd."

"How old are you?

"I don't know."

"Can you read?"

"No, I can't."

"Didn't you go to school?"

"Yes, I did."

"Couldn't you learn to read?"

"No."

"Where does that path lead?"

The boy told him, and Volgin went on to-
wards the house, thinking how he would chaff
Nicholas Petrovich about the deplorable condi-
tion of the village schools in spite of all his ef-
forts.

On approaching the house Volgin looked at his
watch, and saw that it was already past eleven. 
He remembered that Nicholas Petrovich was
going to drive to the nearest town, and that he
had meant to give him a letter to post to Moscow;
but the letter was not written.  The letter was a
very important one to a friend, asking him to bid
for him for a picture of the Madonna which was
to be offered for sale at an auction.  As he
reached the house he saw at the door four big,
well-fed, well-groomed, thoroughbred horses har-
nessed to a carriage, the black lacquer of which
glistened in the sun.  The coachman was seated
on the box in a kaftan, with a silver belt, and the
horses were jingling their silver bells from time
to time.

A bare-headed, bare-footed peasant in a ragged
kaftan stood at the front door.  He bowed. 
Volgin asked what he wanted.

"I have come to see Nicholas Petrovich."

"What about?"

"Because I am in distress--my horse has
died."

Volgin began to question him.  The peasant
told him how he was situated.  He had five chil-
dren, and this had been his only horse.  Now
it was gone.  He wept.

"What are you going to do?"

"To beg "  And he knelt down, and remained
kneeling in spite of Volgin's expostulations.

"What is your name?"

"Mitri Sudarikov," answered the peasant, still
kneeling.

Volgin took three roubles from his purse and
gave them to the peasant, who showed his grat-
itude by touching the ground with his forehead,
and then went into the house.  His host was
standing in the hall.

"Where is your letter?" he asked, approach-
ing Volgin; "I am just off."

"I'm awfully sorry, I'll write it this minute, if
you will let me.  I forgot all about it.  It's so
pleasant here that one can forget anything."

"All right, but do be quick.  The horses have
already been standing a quarter of an hour, and
the flies are biting viciously.  Can you wait, Ar-
senty?" he asked the coachman.

"Why not?" said the coachman, thinking to
himself, "why do they order the horses when
they aren't ready? The rush the grooms and I
had--just to stand here and feed the flies."

"Directly, directly," Volgin went towards his
room, but turned back to ask Nicholas Petrovich
about the begging peasant.

"Did you see him?--He's a drunkard, but
still he is to be pitied.  Do be quick!"

Volgin got out his case, with all the requisites
for writing, wrote the letter, made out a cheque
for a hundred and eighty roubles, and, sealing
down the envelope, took it to Nicholas Petrovich.

"Good-bye."

Volgin read the newspapers till luncheon.  He
only read the Liberal papers:  The Russian
Gazette, Speech, sometimes The Russian Word
--but he would not touch The New Times, to
which his host subscribed.

While he was scanning at his ease the political
news, the Tsar's doings, the doings of President,
and ministers and decisions in the Duma, and was
just about to pass on to the general news, thea-
tres, science, murders and cholera, he heard the
luncheon bell ring.

Thanks to the efforts of upwards of ten human
beings--counting laundresses, gardeners, cooks,
kitchen-maids, butlers and footmen--the table
was sumptuously laid for eight, with silver water-
jugs, decanters, kvass, wine, mineral waters, cut
glass, and fine table linen, while two men-servants
were continually hurrying to and fro, bringing
in and serving, and then clearing away the
hors d'oeuvre and the various hot and cold
courses.

The hostess talked incessantly about every-
thing that she had been doing, thinking, and say-
ing; and she evidently considered that everything
that she thought, said, or did was perfect, and
that it would please every one except those who
were fools.  Volgin felt and knew that every-
thing she said was stupid, but it would never do
to let it be seen, and so he kept up the conversa-
tion.  Theodorite was glum and silent; the stu-
dent occasionally exchanged a few words with the
widow.  Now and again there was a pause in
the conversation, and then Theodorite interposed,
and every one became miserably depressed.  At
such moments the hostess ordered some dish that
had not been served, and the footman hurried
off to the kitchen, or to the housekeeper, and hur-
ried back again.  Nobody felt inclined either to
talk or to eat.  But they all forced themselves
to eat and to talk, and so luncheon went on.

The peasant who had been begging because his
horse had died was named Mitri Sudarikov.  He
had spent the whole day before he went to the
squire over his dead horse.  First of all he went
to the knacker, Sanin, who lived in a village near. 
The knacker was out, but he waited for him, and
it was dinner-time when he had finished bargain-
ing over the price of the skin.  Then he bor-
rowed a neighbour's horse to take his own to a
field to be buried, as it is forbidden to bury dead
animals near a village.  Adrian would not lend
his horse because he was getting in his potatoes,
but Stephen took pity on Mitri and gave way to
his persuasion.  He even lent a hand in lifting
the dead horse into the cart.  Mitri tore off the
shoes from the forelegs and  gave them to his
wife.  One was broken, but the other one was
whole.  While he was digging the grave with a
spade which was very blunt, the knacker appeared
and took off the skin; and the carcass was then
thrown into the hole and covered up.  Mitri felt
tired, and went into Matrena's hut, where he
drank half a bottle of vodka with Sanin to con-
sole himself.  Then he went home, quarrelled
with his wife, and lay down to sleep on the hay. 
He did not undress, but slept just as he was, with
a ragged coat for a coverlet.  His wife was in
the hut with the girls--there were four of them,
and the youngest was only five weeks old.  Mitri
woke up before dawn as usual.  He groaned as
the memory of the day before broke in upon him
--how the horse had struggled and struggled,
and then fallen down.  Now there was no horse,
and all he had was the price of the skin, four
roubles and eighty kopeks.  Getting up he ar-
ranged the linen bands on his legs, and went
through the yard into the hut.  His wife was put-
ting straw into the stove with one hand, with
the other she was holding a baby girl to her
breast, which was hanging out of her dirty
chemise.

Mitri crossed himself three times, turning
towards the corner in which the ikons hung, and
repeated some utterly meaningless words, which
he called prayers, to the Trinity and the Virgin,
the Creed and our Father.

"Isn't there any water?"

"The girl's gone for it.  I've got some tea. 
Will you go up to the squire?"

"Yes, I'd better "  The smoke from the stove
made him cough.  He took a rag off the wooden
bench and went into the porch.  The girl had
just come back with the water.  Mitri filled his
mouth with water from the pail and squirted it
out on his hands, took some more in his mouth
to wash his face, dried himself with the rag, then
parted and smoothed his curly hair with his fin-
gers and went out.  A little girl of about ten,
with nothing on but a dirty shirt, came towards
him.  "Good-morning, Uncle Mitri," she said;
"you are to come and thrash."  "All right, I'll
come," replied Mitri.  He understood that he
was expected to return the help given the week
before by Kumushkir, a man as poor as he was
himself, when he was thrashing his own corn with
a horse-driven machine.

"Tell them I'll come--I'll come at lunch time.
I've got to go to Ugrumi "  Mitri went back to
the hut, and changing his birch-bark shoes and the
linen bands on his legs, started off to see the
squire.  After he had got three roubles from
Volgin, and the same sum from Nicholas Petro-
vich, he returned to his house, gave the money to
his wife, and went to his neighbour's.  The thrash-
ing machine was humming, and the driver was
shouting.  The lean horses were going slowly
round him, straining at their traces.  The driver
was shouting to them in a monotone, "Now, there,
my dears "  Some women were unbinding sheaves,
others were raking up the scattered straw and ears,
and others again were gathering great armfuls of
corn and handing them to the men to feed the
machine.  The work was in full swing.  In the
kitchen garden, which Mitri had to pass, a girl,
clad only in a long shirt, was digging potatoes
which she put into a basket.

"Where's your grandfather?" asked Mitri.
"He's in the barn "  Mitri went to the barn and
set to work at once.  The old man of eighty knew
of Mitri's trouble.  After greeting him, he gave
him his place to feed the machine.

Mitri took off his ragged coat, laid it out of the
way near the fence, and then began to work vig-
orously, raking the corn together and throwing
it into the machine.  The work went on without
interruption until the dinner-hour.  The cocks
had crowed two or three times, but no one paid
any attention to them; not because the workers
did not believe them, but because they were
scarcely heard for the noise of the work and the
talk about it.  At last the whistle of the squire's
steam thrasher sounded three miles away, and then
the owner came into the barn.  He was a straight
old man of eighty.  "It's time to stop," he said;
"it's dinner-time "  Those at work seemed to
redouble their efforts.  In a moment the straw
was cleared away; the grain that had been
thrashed was separated from the chaff and brought
in, and then the workers went into the hut.

The hut was smoke-begrimed, as its stove had
no chimney, but it had been tidied up, and benches
stood round the table, making room for all those
who had been working, of whom there were nine,
not counting the owners.  Bread, soup, boiled
potatoes, and kvass were placed on the table.

An old one-armed beggar, with a bag slung over
his shoulder, came in with a crutch during the meal.

"Peace be to this house.  A good appetite to
you.  For Christ's sake give me something."

"God will give it to you," said the mistress,
already an old woman, and the daughter-in-law of
the master.  "Don't be angry with us "  An old
man, who was still standing near the door, said,
"Give him some bread, Martha.  How can you?"

"I am only wondering whether we shall have
enough."  "Oh, it is wrong, Martha.  God tells
us to help the poor.  Cut him a slice."

Martha obeyed.  The beggar went away.  The
man in charge of the thrashing-machine got up,
said grace, thanked his hosts, and went away to
rest.

Mitri did not lie down, but ran to the shop to
buy some tobacco.  He was longing for a smoke. 
While he smoked he chatted to a man from
Demensk, asking the price of cattle, as he saw
that he would not be able to manage without sell-
ing a cow.  When he returned to the others, they
were already back at work again; and so it went
on till the evening.

Among these downtrodden, duped, and de-
frauded men, who are becoming demoralised by
overwork, and being gradually done to death
by underfeeding, there are men living who
consider themselves Christians; and others so
enlightened that they feel no further need for
Christianity or for any religion, so superior do
they appear in their own esteem.  And yet their
hideous, lazy lives are supported by the degrading,
excessive labour of these slaves, not to mention
the labour of millions of other slaves, toiling in
factories to produce samovars, silver, carriages,
machines, and the like for their use.  They live
among these horrors, seeing them and yet not
seeing them, although often kind at heart--old
men and women, young men and maidens, mothers
and children--poor children who are being viti-
ated and trained into moral blindness.

Here is a bachelor grown old, the owner of
thousands of acres, who has lived a life of idle-
ness, greed, and over-indulgence, who reads The
New Times, and is astonished that the govern-
ment can be so unwise as to permit Jews to enter
the university.  There is his guest, formerly the
governor of a province, now a senator with a big
salary, who reads with satisfaction that a congress
of lawyers has passed a resolution in favor of
capital punishment.  Their political enemy, N. P.,
reads a liberal paper, and cannot understand the
blindness of the government in allowing the union
of Russian men to exist.

Here is a kind, gentle mother of a little girl
reading a story to her about Fox, a dog that
lamed some rabbits.  And here is this little girl. 
During her walks she sees other children, bare-
footed, hungry, hunting for green apples that have
fallen from the trees; and, so accustomed is she
to the sight, that these children do not seem to her
to be children such as she is, but only part of the
usual surroundings--the familiar landscape.

Why is this?




THE YOUNG TSAR




THE YOUNG TSAR

THE young Tsar had just ascended the throne. 
For five weeks he had worked without ceasing, in
the way that Tsars are accustomed to work.  He
had been attending to reports, signing papers, re-
ceiving ambassadors and high officials who came
to be presented to him, and reviewing troops.  He
was tired, and as a traveller exhausted by heat
and thirst longs for a draught of water and for
rest, so he longed for a respite of just one day
at least from receptions, from speeches, from
parades--a few free hours to spend like an ordi-
nary human being with his young, clever, and
beautiful wife, to whom he had been married only
a month before.

It was Christmas Eve.  The young Tsar had
arranged to have a complete rest that evening. 
The night before he had worked till very late at
documents which his ministers of state had left
for him to examine.  In the morning he was
present at the Te Deum, and then at a military
service.  In the afternoon he received official
visitors; and later he had been obliged to listen
to the reports of three ministers of state, and had
given his assent to many important matters.  In
his conference with the Minister of Finance he
had agreed to an increase of duties on imported
goods, which should in the  future add many mil-
lions to the State revenues.  Then he sanctioned
the sale of brandy by the Crown in various parts
of the country, and signed a decree permitting the
sale of alcohol in villages having markets.  This
was also calculated to increase the principal
revenue to the State, which was derived from the
sale of spirits.  He had also approved of the
issuing of a new gold loan required for a financial
negotiation.  The Minister of justice having re-
ported on the complicated case of the succession
of the Baron Snyders, the young Tsar confirmed
the decision by his signature; and also approved
the new rules relating to the application of Arti-
cle 1830 of the penal code, providing for the pun-
ishment of tramps.  In his conference with the
Minister of the Interior he ratified the order con-
cerning the collection of taxes in arrears, signed
the order settling what measures should be taken
in regard to the persecution of religious dissenters,
and also one providing for the continuance of
martial law in those provinces where it had al-
ready been established.  With the Minister of
War he arranged for the nomination of a new
Corps Commander for the raising of recruits, and
for punishment of breach of discipline.  These
things kept him occupied till dinner-time, and even
then his freedom was not complete.  A number
of high officials had been invited to dinner, and
he was obliged to talk to them:  not in the way he
felt disposed to do, but according to what he was
expected to say.  At last the tiresome dinner was
over, and the guests departed.

The young Tsar heaved a sigh of relief,
stretched himself and retired to his apartments
to take off his uniform with the decorations on it,
and to don the jacket he used to wear before his
accession to the throne.  His young wife had also
retired to take off her dinner-dress, remarking
that she would join him presently.

When he had passed the row of footmen who
were standing erect before him, and reached his
room; when he had thrown off his heavy uniform
and put on his jacket, the young Tsar felt glad to
be free from work; and his heart was filled with a
tender emotion which sprang from the conscious-
ness of his freedom, of his joyous, robust young
life, and of his love.  He threw himself on the
sofa, stretched out his legs upon it, leaned his head
on his hand, fixed his gaze on the dull glass shade
of the lamp, and then a sensation which he had not
experienced since his childhood,--the pleasure of
going to sleep, and a drowsiness that was irresist-
ible--suddenly came over him.

"My wife will be here presently and will find
me asleep.  No, I must not go to sleep," he
thought.  He let his elbow drop down, laid his
cheek in the palm of his hand, made himself com-
fortable, and was so utterly happy that he only
felt a desire not to be aroused from this delight-
ful state.

And then what happens to all of us every day
happened to him--he fell asleep without know-
ing himself when or how.  He passed from one
state into another without his will having any
share in it, without even desiring it, and without
regretting the state out of which he had passed. 
He fell into a heavy sleep which was like death. 
How long he had slept he did not know, but
he was suddenly aroused by the soft touch of a
hand upon his shoulder.

"It is my darling, it is she," he thought.
"What a shame to have dozed off!"

But it was not she.  Before his eyes, which
were wide open and blinking at the light, she,
that charming and beautiful creature whom he was
expecting, did not stand, but HE stood.  Who HE
was the young Tsar did not know, but somehow
it did not strike him that he was a stranger whom
he had never seen before.  It seemed as if he had
known him for a long time and was fond of
him, and as if he trusted him as he would trust
himself.  He had expected his beloved wife, but
in her stead that man whom he had never seen
before had come.  Yet to the young Tsar, who
was far from feeling regret or astonishment, it
seemed not only a most natural, but also a neces-
sary thing to happen.

"Come!" said the stranger.

"Yes, let us go," said the young Tsar, not
knowing where he was to go, but quite aware
that he could not help submitting to the com-
mand of the stranger.  "But how shall we go?"
he asked.

"In this way."

The stranger laid his hand on the Tsar's head,
and the Tsar for a moment lost consciousness. 
He could not tell whether he had been uncon-
scious a long or a short time, but when he re-
covered his senses he found himself in a strange
place.  The first thing he was aware of was a
strong and stifling smell of sewage.  The place
in which he stood was a broad passage lit by the
red glow of two dim lamps.  Running along one
side of the passage was a thick wall with windows
protected by iron gratings.  On the other side
were doors secured with locks.  In the passage
stood a soldier, leaning up against the wall, asleep.
Through the doors the young Tsar heard the
muffled sound of living human beings:  not of
one alone, but of many.  HE was standing at the
side of the young Tsar, and pressing his shoulder
slightly with his soft hand, pushed him to the
first door, unmindful of the sentry.  The young
Tsar felt he could not do otherwise than yield,
and approached the door.  To his amazement
the sentry looked straight at him, evidently with-
out seeing him, as he neither straightened himself
up nor saluted, but yawned loudly and, lifting
his hand, scratched the back of his neck.  The
door had a small hole, and in obedience to the
pressure of the hand that pushed him, the young
Tsar approached a step nearer and put his eye to
the small opening.  Close to the door, the foul
smell that stifled him was stronger, and the young
Tsar hesitated to go nearer, but the hand pushed
him on.  He leaned forward, put his eye close
to the opening, and suddenly ceased to perceive
the odour.  The sight he saw deadened his sense
of smell.  In a large room, about ten yards long
and six yards wide, there walked unceasingly from
one end to the other, six men in long  grey
coats, some in felt boots, some barefoot.  There
were over twenty men in all in the room, but
in that first moment the young Tsar only saw
those who were walking with quick, even, silent
steps.  It was a horrid sight to watch the con-
tinual, quick, aimless movements of the men who
passed and overtook each other, turning sharply
when they reached the wall, never looking at one
another, and evidently concentrated each on his
own thoughts.  The young Tsar had observed a
similar sight one day when he was watching a tiger
in a menagerie pacing rapidly with noiseless tread
from one end of his cage to the other, waving its
tail, silently turning when it reached the bars, and
looking at nobody.  Of these men one, appar-
ently a young peasant, with curly hair, would
have been handsome were it not for the unnatural
pallor of his face, and the concentrated, wicked,
scarcely human, look in his eyes.  Another was
a Jew, hairy and gloomy.  The third was a lean
old man, bald, with a beard that had been shaven
and had since grown like bristles.  The fourth was
extraordinarily heavily built, with well-developed
muscles, a low receding forehead and a flat nose. 
The fifth was hardly more than a boy, long,
thin, obviously consumptive.  The sixth was
small and dark, with nervous, convulsive move-
ments.  He walked as if he were skipping, and
muttered continuously to himself.  They were
all walking rapidly backwards and forwards past
the hole through which the young Tsar was look-
ing.  He watched their faces and their gait with
keen interest.  Having examined them closely, he
presently became aware of a number of other men
at the back of the room, standing round, or lying
on the shelf that served as a bed.  Standing close
to the door he also saw the pail which caused
such an unbearable stench.  On the shelf about
ten men, entirely covered with their cloaks, were
sleeping.  A red-haired man with a huge beard
was sitting sideways on the shelf, with his shirt
off.  He was examining it, lifting it up to the
light, and evidently catching the vermin on it. 
Another man, aged and white as snow, stood with
his profile turned towards the door.  He was
praying, crossing himself, and bowing low, ap-
parently so absorbed in his devotions as to be
oblivious of all around him.

"I see--this is a prison," thought the young
Tsar.  "They certainly deserve pity.  It is a
dreadful life.  But it cannot be helped.  It is
their own fault."

But this thought had hardly come into his
head before HE, who was his guide, replied to
it.

"They are all here under lock and key by your
order.  They have all been sentenced in your
name.  But far from meriting their present con-
dition which is due to your human judgment, the
greater part of them are far better than you or
those who were their judges and who keep them
here.  This one"--he pointed to the handsome,
curly-headed fellow--"is a murderer.  I do not
consider him more guilty than those who kill in
war or in duelling, and are rewarded for their
deeds.  He had neither education nor moral
guidance, and his life had been cast among thieves
and drunkards.  This lessens his guilt, but he has
done wrong, nevertheless, in being a murderer. 
He killed a merchant, to rob him.  The other
man, the Jew, is a thief, one of a gang of thieves. 
That uncommonly strong fellow is a horse-stealer,
and guilty also, but compared with others not as
culpable.  Look!"--and suddenly the young
Tsar found himself in an open field on a vast
frontier.  On the right were potato fields; the
plants had been rooted out, and were lying in
heaps, blackened by the frost; in alternate streaks
were rows of winter corn.  In the distance a little
village with its tiled roofs was visible; on the left
were fields of winter corn, and fields of stubble. 
No one was to be seen on any side, save a black
human figure in front at the border-line, a gun
slung on his back, and at his feet a dog.  On the
spot where the young Tsar stood, sitting beside
him, almost at his feet, was a young Russian
soldier with a green band on his cap, and with his
rifle slung over his shoulders, who was rolling up
a paper to make a cigarette.  The soldier was
obviously unaware of the presence of the young
Tsar and his companion, and had not heard them. 
He did now turn round when the Tsar, who was
standing directly over the soldier, asked, "Where
are we?"  "On the Prussian frontier," his guide
answered.  Suddenly, far away in front of them,
a shot was fired.  The soldier jumped to his feet,
and seeing two men running, bent low to the
ground, hastily put his tobacco into his pocket,
and ran after one of them.  "Stop, or I'll
shoot!" cried the soldier.  The fugitive, without
stopping, turned his head and called out something
evidently abusive or blasphemous.

"Damn you!" shouted the soldier, who put one
foot a little forward and stopped, after which,
bending his head over his rifle, and raising his
right hand, he rapidly adjusted something, took
aim, and, pointing the gun in the direction of the
fugitive, probably fired, although no sound was
heard.  "Smokeless powder, no doubt," thought
the young Tsar, and looking after the fleeing man
saw him take a few hurried steps, and bending
lower and lower, fall to the ground and crawl on
his hands and knees.  At last he remained lying
and did not move.  The other fugitive, who was
ahead of him, turned round and ran back to
the man who was lying on the ground.  He
did something for him and then resumed his
flight.

"What does all this mean? " asked the Tsar.

"These are the guards on the frontier, enforc-
ing the revenue laws.  That man was killed to
protect the revenues of the State."

"Has he actually been killed? "

The guide again laid his hand upon the head of
the young Tsar, and again the Tsar lost conscious-
ness.  When he had recovered his senses he found
himself in a small room--the customs office. 
The dead body of a man, with a thin grizzled
beard, an aquiline nose, and big eyes with the
eyelids closed, was lying on the floor.  His arms
were thrown asunder, his feet bare, and his thick,
dirty toes were turned up at right angles and stuck
out straight.  He had a wound in his side, and
on his ragged cloth jacket, as well as on his blue
shirt, were stains of clotted blood, which had
turned black save for a few red spots here and
there.  A woman stood close to the wall, so
wrapped up in shawls that her face could scarcely
be seen.  Motionless she gazed at the aquiline
nose, the upturned feet, and the protruding eye-
balls; sobbing and sighing, and drying her tears at
long, regular intervals.  A pretty girl of thirteen
was standing at her mother's side, with her eyes
and mouth wide open.  A boy of eight clung to
his mother's skirt, and looked intensely at his dead
father without blinking.

From a door near them an official, an officer, a
doctor, and a clerk with documents, entered. 
After them came a soldier, the one who had shot
the man.  He stepped briskly along behind his
superiors, but the instant he saw the corpse he
went suddenly pale, and quivered; and dropping
his head stood still.  When the official asked him
whether that was the man who was escaping across
the frontier, and at whom he had fired, he was
unable to answer.  His lips trembled, and his
face twitched.  "The s--s--s--" he began, but
could not get out the words which he wanted to
say.  "The same, your excellency."  The of-
ficials looked at each other and wrote something
down.

"You see the beneficial results of that same
system!"

In a room of sumptuous vulgarity two men sat
drinking wine.  One of them was old and grey,
the other a young Jew.  The young Jew was
holding a roll of bank-notes in his hand, and was
bargaining with the old man.  He was buying
smuggled goods.

"You've got 'em cheap," he said, smiling.

"Yes--but the risk--"

"This is indeed terrible," said the young Tsar;
but it cannot be avoided.  Such proceedings are
necessary."

His companion made no response, saying
merely, "Let us move on," and laid his hand
again on the head of the Tsar.  When the Tsar
recovered consciousness, he was standing in a
small room lit by a shaded lamp.  A woman was
sitting at the table sewing.  A boy of eight was
bending over the table, drawing, with his feet
doubled up under him in the armchair.  A stu-
dent was reading aloud.  The father and daugh-
ter of the family entered the room noisily.

"You signed the order concerning the sale of
spirits," said the guide to the Tsar.

"Well?" said the woman.

"He's not likely to live."

"What's the matter with him?"

"They've kept him drunk all the time."

"It's not possible!" exclaimed the wife. 

"It's true.  And the boy's only nine years old,
that Vania Moroshkine."

"What did you do to try to save him?" asked
the wife.

"I tried everything that could be done.  I gave
him an emetic and put a mustard-plaster on him. 
He has every symptom of delirium tremens."

"It's no wonder--the whole family are drunk-
ards.  Annisia is only a little better than the rest,
and even she is generally more or less drunk,"
said the daughter.

"And what about your temperance society?"
the student asked his sister.

"What can we do when they are given every
opportunity of drinking? Father tried to have
the public-house shut up, but the law is against
him.  And, besides, when I was trying to convince
Vasily Ermiline that it was disgraceful to keep
a public-house and ruin the people with drink,
he answered very haughtily, and indeed got the
better of me before the crowd:  'But I have a
license with the Imperial eagle on it.  If there
was anything wrong in my business, the Tsar
wouldn't have issued a decree authorising it.'
Isn't it terrible? The whole village has been
drunk for the last three days.  And as for feast-
days, it is simply horrible to think of!  It has
been proved conclusively that alcohol does no good
in any case, but invariably does harm, and it
has been demonstrated to be an absolute poison. 
Then, ninety-nine per cent. of the crimes in the
world are committed through its influence.  We
all know how the standard of morality and the
general welfare improved at once in all the coun-
tries where drinking has been suppressed--like
Sweden and Finland, and we know that it can be
suppressed by exercising a moral influence over
the masses.  But in our country the class which
could exert that influence--the Government, the
Tsar and his officials--simply encourage drink. 
Their main revenues are drawn from the continual
drunkenness of the people.  They drink them-
selves--they are always drinking the health of
somebody:  'Gentlemen, the Regiment!' The
preachers drink, the bishops drink--"

Again the guide touched the head of the young
Tsar, who again lost consciousness.  This time he
found himself in a peasant's cottage.  The peas-
ant--a man of forty, with red face and blood-
shot eyes--was furiously striking the face of an
old man, who tried in vain to protect himself from
the blows.  The younger peasant seized the beard
of the old man and held it fast.

"For shame!  To strike your father--!"

"I don't care, I'll kill him! Let them send
me to Siberia, I don't care!"

The women were screaming.  Drunken officials
rushed into the cottage and separated father and
son.  The father had an arm broken and the son's
beard was torn out.  In the doorway a drunken
girl was making violent love to an old besotted
peasant.

"They are beasts!" said the young Tsar.

Another touch of his guide's hand and the
young Tsar awoke in a new place.  It was the
office of the justice of the peace.  A fat, bald-
headed man, with a double chin and a chain round
his neck, had just risen from his seat, and was
reading the sentence in a loud voice, while a crowd
of peasants stood behind the grating.  There was
a woman in rags in the crowd who did not rise. 
The guard gave her a push.

"Asleep! I tell you to stand up!" The
woman rose.

"According to the decree of his Imperial
Majesty--" the judge began reading the sen-
tence.  The case concerned that very woman. 
She had taken away half a bundle of oats as she
was passing the thrashing-floor of a landowner. 
The justice of the peace sentenced her to two
months' imprisonment.  The landowner whose
oats had been stolen was among the audi-
ence.  When the judge adjourned the court the
landowner approached, and shook hands, and the
judge entered into conversation with him.  The
next case was about a stolen samovar.  Then
there was a trial about some timber which had
been cut, to the detriment of the landowner. 
Some peasants were being tried for having as-
saulted the constable of the district.

When the young Tsar again lost consciousness,
he awoke to find himself in the middle of a vil-
lage, where he saw hungry, half-frozen children
and the wife of the man who had assaulted the
constable broken down from overwork.

Then came a new scene.  In Siberia, a tramp
is being flogged with the lash, the direct result of
an order issued by the Minister of justice.  Again
oblivion, and another scene.  The family of a
Jewish watchmaker is evicted for being too poor. 
The children are crying, and the Jew, Isaaks, is
greatly distressed.  At last they come to an ar-
rangement, and he is allowed to stay on in the
lodgings.

The chief of police takes a bribe.  The gov-
ernor of the province also secretly accepts a bribe. 
Taxes are being collected.  In the village, while
a cow is sold for payment, the police inspector is
bribed by a factory owner, who thus escapes taxes
altogether.  And again a village court scene, and
a sentence carried into execution--the lash!

"Ilia Vasilievich, could you not spare me
that?"

"No."

The peasant burst into tears.  "Well, of
course, Christ suffered, and He bids us suffer
too."

Then other scenes.  The Stundists--a sect
--being broken up and dispersed; the clergy re-
fusing first to marry, then to bury a Protestant. 
Orders given concerning the passage of the Im-
perial railway train.  Soldiers kept sitting in the
mud--cold, hungry, and cursing.  Decrees is-
sued relating to the educational institutions of the
Empress Mary Department.  Corruption ram-
pant in the foundling homes.  An undeserved
monument.  Thieving among the clergy.  The
reinforcement of the political police.  A woman
being searched.  A prison for convicts who are
sentenced to be deported.  A man being hanged
for murdering a shop assistant.

Then the result of military discipline:  soldiers
wearing uniform and scoffing at it.  A gipsy en-
campment.  The son of a millionaire exempted
from military duty, while the only support of a
large family is forced to serve.  The university:
a teacher relieved of military service, while the
most gifted musicians are compelled to perform
it.  Soldiers and their debauchery--and the
spreading of disease.

Then a soldier who has made an attempt to
desert.  He is being tried.  Another is on trial
for striking an officer who has insulted his mother. 
He is put to death.  Others, again, are tried for
having refused to shoot.  The runaway soldier
sent to a disciplinary battalion and flogged to
death.  Another, who is guiltless, flogged, and
his wounds sprinkled with salt till he dies.  One
of the superior officers stealing money belonging
to the soldiers.  Nothing but drunkenness, de-
bauchery, gambling, and arrogance on the part of
the authorities.

What is the general condition of the people:
the children are half-starving and degenerate; the
houses are full of vermin; an everlasting dull
round of labour, of submission, and of sadness. 
On the other hand:  ministers, governors of prov-
inces, covetous, ambitious, full of vanity, and
anxious to inspire fear.

"But where are men with human feelings?"

"I will show you where they are."

Here is the cell of a woman in solitary confine-
ment at Schlusselburg.  She is going mad.  Here
is another woman--a girl--indisposed, violated
by soldiers.  A man in exile, alone, embittered,
half-dead.  A prison for convicts condemned to
hard labour, and women flogged.  They are
many.

Tens of thousands of the best people.  Some
shut up in prisons, others ruined by false educa-
tion, by the vain desire to bring them up as we
wish.  But not succeeding in this, whatever might
have been is ruined as well, for it is made impos-
sible.  It is as if we were trying to make buck-
wheat out of corn sprouts by splitting the ears.
One may spoil the corn, but one could never
change it to buckwheat.  Thus all the youth of
the world, the entire younger generation, is being
ruined.

But woe to those who destroy one of these little
ones, woe to you if you destroy even one of
them.  On your soul, however, are hosts of them,
who have been ruined in your name, all of those
over whom your power extends.

"But what can I do?" exclaimed the Tsar in
despair.  "I do not wish to torture, to flog, to
corrupt, to kill any one! I only want the welfare
of all.  Just as I yearn for happiness myself, so I
want the world to be happy as well.  Am I actu-
ally responsible for everything that is done in my
name? What can I do? What am I to do to
rid myself of such a responsibility? What can I
do? I do not admit that the responsibility for all
this is mine.  If I felt myself responsible for one-
hundredth part of it, I would shoot myself on the
spot.  It would not be possible to live if that were
true.  But how can I put an end, to all this evil?
It is bound up with the very existence of the
State.  I am the head of the State! What am I
to do? Kill myself? Or abdicate? But that
would mean renouncing my duty. O God, O God,
God, help me!" He burst into tears and awoke.

"How glad I am that it was only a dream,"
was his first thought.  But when he began to
recollect what he had seen in his dream, and to
compare it with actuality, he realised that the
problem propounded to him in dream remained
just as important and as insoluble now that he was
awake.  For the first time the young Tsar became
aware of the heavy responsibility weighing on him,
and was aghast.  His thoughts no longer turned
to the young Queen and to the happiness he had
anticipated for that evening, but became centred
on the unanswerable question which hung over
him:  "What was to be done?"

In a state of great agitation he arose and went
into the next room.  An old courtier, a co-worker
and friend of his father's, was standing there in
the middle of the room in conversation with the
young Queen, who was on her way to join her
husband.  The young Tsar approached them, and
addressing his conversation principally to the old
courtier, told him what he had seen in his dream
and what doubts the dream had left in his mind.

"That is a noble idea.  It proves the rare
nobility of your spirit," said the old man.  "But
forgive me for speaking frankly--you are too
kind to be an  emperor, and you exaggerate your
responsibility.  In the first place, the state of
things is not as you imagine it to be.  The people
are not poor.  They are well-to-do.  Those who
are poor are poor through their own fault.  Only
the guilty are punished, and if an unavoidable
mistake does sometimes occur, it is like a thunder-
bolt--an accident, or the will of God.  You have
but one responsibility:  to fulfil your task coura-
geously and to retain the power that is given to
you.  You wish the best for your people and God
sees that.  As for the errors which you have com-
mitted unwittingly, you can pray for forgiveness,
and God will guide you and pardon you.  All the
more because you have done nothing that demands
forgiveness, and there never have been and never
will be men possessed of such extraordinary qual-
ities as you and your father.  Therefore all we
implore you to do is to live, and to reward our
endless devotion and love with your favour, and
every one, save scoundrels who deserve no happi-
ness, will be happy."

"What do you think about that?" the young
Tsar asked his wife.

"I have a different opinion," said the clever
young woman, who had been brought up in a free
country.  "I am glad you had that dream, and I
agree with you that there are grave responsibili-
ties resting upon you.  I have often thought about
it with great anxiety, and I think there is a simple
means of casting off a part of the responsibility
you are unable to bear, if not all of it.  A large
proportion of the power which is too heavy for
you, you should delegate to the people, to its
representatives, reserving for yourself only the
supreme control, that is, the general direction of
the affairs of State."

The Queen had hardly ceased to expound her
views, when the old courtier began eagerly to
refute her arguments, and they started a polite
but very heated discussion.

For a time the young Tsar followed their argu-
ments, but presently he ceased to be aware of
what they said, listening only to the voice of him
who had been his guide in the dream, and who
was now speaking audibly in his heart.

"You are not only the Tsar," said the voice,
"but more.  You are a human being, who only
yesterday came into this world, and will perchance
to-morrow depart out of it.  Apart from your
duties as a Tsar, of which that old man is now
speaking, you have more immediate duties not by
any means to be disregarded; human duties, not
the duties of a Tsar towards his subjects, which
are only accidental, but an eternal duty, the duty
of a man in his relation to God, the duty toward
your own soul, which is to save it, and also, to
serve God in establishing his kingdom on earth.
You are not to be guarded in your actions either
by what has been or what will be, but only by
what it is your own duty to do.

***

He opened his eyes--his wife was awakening him.
Which of the three courses the young Tsar chose,
will be told in fifty years.



End of Project Gutenberg etext of The Forged Coupon




Note:  On page 40, ll. 25-26, I have changed
"noncom-formist" to read "noncon-formist"
and on page 214, ll. 2-3, "Us-tina" to read
"Us-tinia".