As he headed back to the inn, looking at the houses of the rich land owners, cattle dealers, and blacksmiths, he reflected how nice it would be to break into some rich man’s house!
MURDER
(Abridged)
Matthew was sitting in the kitchen, eating a bowl of baked potatoes. Near the stove, Aglaya and Dashutka were facing one another, winding yarn. An ironing-board, with a cold iron on it, was stretched between the stove and the table where Matthew was sitting.
“Sister,” Matthew asked, “let me have a little oil!”
“Who would eat oil on a day like this?” asked Aglaya.
“I’m not a monk, sister, I’m a regular man. Due to my ill health, I may take not only oil but even some milk.”
“Sure; if this were your factory, you could have anything you want.”
Aglaya took a bottle of oil from the shelf and set it down angrily before Matthew. She was gloating, obviously very pleased to see that he was such a sinner.
“But I tell you, you can’t eat oil!” shouted Yakov, startling Aglaya and Dashutka. Matthew, as if he had not heard the comment, poured some oil into the bowl and continued eating.
“I tell you, you can’t have the oil!” Yakov shouted still more loudly, blushing at his own boldness. He suddenly yanked away the bowl, lifted it above his head, and dashed it to the ground with such force that the bowl broke into little pieces. “Don’t you dare speak!” he shouted furiously, although Matthew had not said a word. “Don’t you dare!” he repeated, and struck his fist on the table.
Matthew turned pale as he rose from the table. “Brother!” he said, while still chewing, “brother, come to your senses!”
“Get out of my house, NOW!” shouted Yakov. He was thoroughly disgusted by Matthew’s wrinkled face, his voice, the crumbs on his moustache, and even his chewing. “Get out, I tell you!”
“Brother, calm down! Evil pride has seized you!”
“Shut up!” Yakov stamped his feet. “Get lost, you devil!”
“If you care to know,” Matthew went on loudly, as he, too, began to get angry, “you are an apostate and a heretic. You’ve been cursed by having the light of truth hidden from you, and God is not pleased with your prayer. Repent before it is too late! The death of a sinner is cruel! Repent, brother!”
Yakov grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged Matthew away from the table. Confused, Matthew, who turned even paler, began muttering, “What’s the matter? What’s going on?” and, struggling in his effort to free himself from Yakov’s grip, he accidentally tore the collar of Yakov’s shirt, causing Aglaya to believe he was going to beat Yakov. She uttered a scream, snatched the bottle of oil, and with all her force smashed it down straight on the top of the hateful brother’s head. Matthew reeled, and a moment later his face turned calm and indifferent.
Panting heavily, Yakov was excited and pleased by the crack made by the bottle as it struck Matthew’s head. Yet, Yakov would not let him fall. Several times (he remembered it very well) he pointed to Aglaya and the iron with his index finger. It was not until the blood started trickling over his hands, and Dashutka let loose with a loud cry as the ironing board fell over when Matthew fell against it heavily, that the anger released Yakov and he finally realized what had happened.
“Let him croak, the factory stud!” Aglaya uttered with repulsion, the iron still in her hand. The white bloodstained kerchief slipped down onto her shoulders, allowing her gray hair to hang loose. “It serves him right!”
Everything was frightening. Dashutka was sitting on the floor near the stove with her yarn in her hands, sobbing and bowing, uttering “Gam! Gam!” with every bow. However, nothing was more frightening to Yakov than the boiled potatoes, sodden with blood. He was afraid to step on them. Yet something else was more sobering, depressing, and seemed to him most dangerous of all. It took him a moment to grasp that the barman, Sergey Nikanorych, was standing in the doorway with the abacus in his hands, very pale, and had watched in terror what had just happened in the kitchen. Only when he turned, walking quickly through the hall and outside, did Yakov realize who had observed them, and went after him.
Yakov wiped his hands on the snow as he walked, and reflected. The idea came to him that he could say their hired hand had asked to go to his village to stay there overnight and so wasn’t around to be a witness. They had just butchered a pig the day before, and there were signs of blood from the slaughtering on the snow, the sleigh, and even on one side of the well cover. It would not seem suspicious to any outsider if even all of Yakov’s family had bloodstains. It would be grievous enough to conceal the murder, but when Yakov thought about the policeman, whistling and smiling ironically, the local villagers coming together to gossip and stare at Yakov and Aglaya as they would be bound, and taken triumphantly to the police station, while everyone would point at them along the way cheering, “Ha, here come the preachers!” This seemed to Yakov the most grievous offense of all. He wished time could somehow stretch, so this disgrace would occur not now, but sometime in the future.
“I can lend you a thousand rubles,” he said, catching up to Sergey Nikanorych. “There is nothing in it for you if you tell anyone … and there’s no way to bring him back.” He could hardly keeping pace with the barman, who refused to look at him as he tried to walk as far from Yakov as possible. “I could give you fifteen hundred as well …”
He stopped as he was out of breath. Sergey Nikanorych kept on walking as quickly as he could, probably afraid that he, too, would be killed. It was not until he had walked past the railroad crossing and halfway down the road to the railroad station, that he looked back quickly and slowed his pace. The red and green lights were already on at the station and along the tracks; the wind was dying but snowflakes were still falling, turning the road white again. Sergey Nikanorych stopped as far as the station itself, deep in thought, and then resolutely walked back. It was growing dark.
“Fifteen hundred rubles, Yakov Ivanych,” he said quietly, trembling all over. “I agree.”
Only part of Yakov Ivanych’s money was in the town bank; the other part he had invested by offering mortgages in the village. He kept very little at home, just what he needed to run the household.
Entering the kitchen, he groped for a box of matches. Lighting one, he was able to make out the Matthew’s corpse still lying on the floor where he had fallen, covered with a white sheet. Only his boots could be seen. A cricket was chirping loudly outside. Aglaya and Dashutka were sitting behind the counter in the tearoom, winding yarn in complete silence.
Holding a lamp in his hand, Yakov Ivanych went into his room and pulled the little chest holding the household money out from under the bed. There was only four hundred and twenty-one rubles in small bills, and thirty-five rubles in silver; the notes felt heavy and unpleasant. Yakov Ivanych put the money into his cap, heading first into the yard, then outside the gate. He walked, looking around, but could not find the barman.
“Hey!” cried Yakov.
A dark figure separated from the shadows near the railroad crossing and moved slowly toward him.
“Why are you still walking?” asked Yakov with annoyance, as he recognized the barman. “Here you are; it’s a little less than five hundred, but that’s all I had at home.”
“Very well … I’m grateful to you,” mumbled Sergey Nikanorych, grabbing the money greedily as he stuffed it into his pockets. He was visibly trembling all over, despite the darkness. “And you, Yakov Ivanych, don’t worry about it…. Why would I tell? It’s simple. I was there earlier, and then left. As the saying goes, I know nothing and I can say nothing …” And he added with a sigh, “This cursed life!”
They stood standing quietly for a minute without looking at each other.
“Yeah, but this all happened over a trifle, God knows how it could …” said the barman, trembling. “You know, I was sitting counting to myself when I heard that noise…. I looked through the door…. It was all because of the oil…. Where is he now?”
<
br /> “Lying in the kitchen.”
“You’d better take him somewhere…. What are you waiting for?”
In silence, Yakov accompanied him to the station, and then returned home. He harnessed the horse to take Matthew to Limarovo forest and leave him somewhere on the road, the plan being to tell everyone that Matthew had gone off to Vedenyapino and not returned, causing everyone to think he had been killed by some travelers. He knew he would not deceive anyone with these lies, but it felt less torturous to have something to do than just to sit and wait. He called Dashutka, and together they carried Matthew away. Aglaya remained in the kitchen to clean up.
When Yakov and Dashutka were returning, they were stopped by the lowered bar at the railroad crossing. Breathing heavily and letting shafts of crimson fire out of its ash pits, a long freight train was passing by, dragged by two engines. At the crossing, in sight of the station, the first engine let out a piercing whistle.
“Whistling …” said Dashutka.
The train had finally passed, and the watchman took his time lifting the bar.
“Is that you, Yakov Ivanych?” said he. “You know that old saying, if I didn’t recognize you, you’ll be rich. Ha, ha, ha!”
It was very late by the time they made it back home. Aglaya and Dashutka made themselves a bed on the floor in the tea-room and lay down side by side. Yakov went to sleep on the counter. Before going to bed none of them prayed to God, or lit the icon-lamps. None of them slept a wink that night, nor spoke a single word. The entire night, they all felt like someone was walking in the bedroom above them.
Two days later, a police officer and an investigator came from town to conduct a search, first in Matthew’s room and then throughout the whole inn. They questioned Yakov first of all, and he told them that on Monday evening Matthew went to Vedenyapino to fast, and that he must have been attacked and killed by the woodcutters working on the train track.
The investigator asked him how Matthew was found on the road, while his cap was found in his room at home—could he have gone to Vedenyapino without his cap?—Why not a single drop of blood was found on the road near Matthew, although his head was fractured, and his face and chest were black with blood. Yakov was confused and taken aback, and answered: “I don’t know how.”
And everything happened just as Yakov had feared: the policeman came, the investigator smoked in the prayer room, Aglaya swore and was rude to the officers; and while Yakov and Aglaya were led in handcuffs from their yard, the peasants happily crowded at the gates and said, “They are taking away those religious nuts.”
During the investigation, the policeman testified without hesitation that Yakov and Aglaya killed Matthew to avoid sharing their inheritance with him, and since Matthew had apparently had money of his own, none of which could be found in the police’s search of his property, that Yakov and Aglaya must have stolen it.
Dashutka was interrogated as well. She said that Uncle Matthew and Aunt Aglaya quarreled and nearly beat each other up every day over money, and that Uncle Matthew was rich, because he had given his “sweetheart” nine hundred rubles.
Dashutka was left alone at the inn. No one came now to drink tea or vodka, leaving her to either clean up the rooms or eat pastries with honey. A few days later, they interviewed the watchman from the railroad crossing, who said that late Monday evening he had seen Yakov and Dashutka return from Limarovo. As a result, Dashutka, too, was arrested, taken to town and put in prison.
Soon word spread that Sergey Nikanorych had been present at the murder. A search was conducted at his place, where money was found in an unusual place, in his boot under the stove. The money was all in small bills, three hundred one-ruble notes. He swore he had earned this money at work and that he hadn’t been to the inn for over a year, but witnesses testified that he was poor and had lately been short of cash, and how he used to go to the inn every day to borrow money from Matthew. The policeman described how on the day of the murder he himself had been at the inn twice accompanying the barman to help him borrow some money. It was also noted that Monday evening Sergey Nikanorych did not meet the freight and passenger train as he usually did, and his whereabouts were unknown. He, too, was arrested and sent to the town.
Eleven months later the trial occurred.
Yakov Ivanych looked much older and thinner, and spoke in a sickly, quiet voice. He felt weak, miserable, and smaller than anyone else. His soul, tortured by his conscience and dreams, his constant companions in prison, had grown old and thin like his body. When it came to the point that he was not attending church, the chief justice asked him: “Are you a dissenter?”
“Not that I know of,” he answered.
He had no faith at all now. He knew and understood nothing. His former faith was disgusting to him, it seemed unreasonable and dark. Aglaya had no peace, and continued to blame Matthew for all their misfortunes. Sergey Nikanorych now had a beard instead of stubble. At the trial he blushed and perspired, obviously ashamed of his gray prison robe and sitting on the same bench with common peasants. He justified himself awkwardly, and when he kept trying to prove he had not been at the inn for a year, he was continually proved to be there by every witness, to the amusement of the audience. While in prison, Dashutka had put on weight. At the trial she did not understand what she was being asked. All she could say was that when Uncle Matthew was killed, she was very scared, and then it felt better.
All four were found guilty of murder and given lengthy sentences. Yakov Ivanych was sentenced to penal servitude for twenty years; Aglaya for thirteen and a half; Sergey Nikanorych for ten; Dashutka for six.
Late in the evening, a foreign steamer stopped in Sakhalin and requested coal. The captain was asked to wait till morning, but did not want to wait even one hour, saying that if the weather got worse throughout the night he would have run the risk of leaving without coal. In the Strait of Tartary the weather can change dramatically within half an hour, becoming dangerous for those near Sakhalin’s shores. The water was growing colder and the waves were gaining height.
A group of prisoners was driven to the mine from Voevodskaya prison, the gloomiest and most severe of all the prisons on the island. They had to load barges with coal and then to tow them using a small steamboat to the waiting steamer anchored more than a quarter of a mile from the coast. There, the coal had to be reloaded, a most exhausting task. The barge kept bumping into the steamer, and the workers, weak with sea sickness, could hardly stand on their feet. The convicts, still sleepy and not quite awake, stumbled along the shore in the dark, clanking their shackles.
A steep and extremely gloomy bank was barely visible on the left, while on the right there was a thick, impenetrable mist; the sea was monotonously repeating, “Ah! … Ah! … Ah!”
Only when the overseer lit his pipe were the faces of the gun-carrying guard and two or three of the closest coarse-faced convicts lit for an instant, and the white crests of the foremost waves could be discerned.
Yakov Ivanych—nicknamed Broom by the convicts for his long beard—was a part of this group of convicts. He was now called simply Yashka. He had a bad reputation. Three months after coming to Siberia, feeling incredibly homesick, he had escaped. He had quickly been caught, given a life sentence and forty lashes. He was later punished by caning twice more for losing his prison clothes, although each time they had been stolen from him. His homesickness had begun the very moment he had been brought to Odessa, and the prison train had stopped at Progonnaya station. Yakov, pressing against the window, could see nothing, especially not his home, in the darkness.
He had no one to talk to about home. His sister Aglaya had been sent to the other side of Siberia, and nobody knew where she was now. Dashutka was in Sakhalin, too, but she lived in a faraway settlement with a former convict. The only gossip he had heard from another transferred prisoner was that Dashutka had three children. Sergey Nikanorych was serving as footman to an officer who lived not far from the prison, in Dui, but there was no hope of seeing hi
m due to his revulsion at peasant convicts.
The group reached the mine and stopped at the quay. They were told there would be no loading, as the weather was getting worse and, supposedly, the steamer was set to leave. Three lights could be seen. One was moving: the light from the steamboat that had been near the steamer and was now coming back to say whether the loading would occur or not. Shivering in the autumn cold and the damp from the sea, wrapping himself in his short, torn sheepskin coat, Yakov Ivanych looked intently without blinking in the direction where his home lay. Since coming to live in the prison together with men from all over Europe—Russians, Ukrainians, Tatars, Georgians, Chinese, Finns, Gypsies, Jews—he began to listen to their conversations and watched them suffering, his faith began to grow again, as he felt that finally he had learned the true faith, the very faith that his whole family had longed for and for which they had searched in vain. He knew now where God was, and how He was to be served. There was only one thing now that he did not understand: why did one person’s destiny differ so much from another’s? Why did this simple faith, that some got for free while living their lives, come at such a price, with his limbs trembling like a drunk’s from all the horror and suffering that apparently would go on without end until his death.
Yakov peered intensely into the darkness. It seemed to him that through a thousand miles of that mist he could see his home, his village, and the railroad station. He could see the ignorance, savagery, heartlessness, and indifference of the people he had left behind. His sight grew dim with tears, but he kept gazing into the distance where the steamer’s pale lights were shining vaguely. His heart ached with longing for home. He wanted to live, to return home and share his new faith with all, in the hopes of making a difference to one man, and to live without suffering, if only for a day.