Yakov Ivanitch's money was in the bank of the town and was invested
in second mortgages; he only kept a little at home, Just what was
wanted for necessary expenses. Going into the kitchen he felt for
the matchbox, and while the sulphur was burning with a blue light
he had time to make out the figure of Matvey, which was still lying
on the floor near the table, but now it was covered with a white
sheet, and nothing could be seen but his boots. A cricket was
chirruping. Aglaia and Dashutka were not in the room, they were
both sitting behind the counter in the tea-room, spinning yarn in
silence. Yakov Ivanitch crossed to his own room with a little lamp
in his hand, and pulled from under the bed a little box in which
he kept his money. This time there were in it four hundred and
twenty one-rouble notes and silver to the amount of thirty-five
roubles; the notes had an unpleasant heavy smell. Putting the money
together in his cap, Yakov Ivanitch went out into the yard and then
out of the gate. He walked, looking from side to side, but there
was no sign of the waiter.
"Hi!" cried Yakov.
A dark figure stepped out from the barrier at the railway crossing
and came irresolutely towards him.
"Why do you keep walking about?" said Yakov with vexation, as he
recognized the waiter. "Here you are; there is a little less than
five hundred. . . . I've no more in the house."
"Very well; . . . very grateful to you," muttered Sergey Nikanoritch,
taking the money greedily and stuffing it into his pockets. He was
trembling all over, and that was perceptible in spite of the darkness.
"Don't worry yourself, Yakov Ivanitch. . . . What should I chatter
for: I came and went away, that's all I've had to do with it. As
the saying is, I know nothing and I can tell nothing . . ." And at
once he added with a sigh "Cursed life!"
For a minute they stood in silence, without looking at each other.
"So it all came from a trifle, goodness knows how, . . ." said the
waiter, trembling. "I was sitting counting to myself when all at
once a noise. . . . I looked through the door, and just on account
of Lenten oil you. . . . Where is he now?"
"Lying there in the kitchen."
"You ought to take him somewhere. . . . Why put it off?"
Yakov accompanied him to the station without a word, then went home
again and harnessed the horse to take Matvey to Limarovo. He had
decided to take him to the forest of Limarovo, and to leave him
there on the road, and then he would tell everyone that Matvey had
gone off to Vedenyapino and had not come back, and then everyone
would think that he had been killed by someone on the road. He knew
there was no deceiving anyone by this, but to move, to do something,
to be active, was not as agonizing as to sit still and wait. He
called Dashutka, and with her carried Matvey out. Aglaia stayed
behind to clean up the kitchen.
When Yakov and Dashutka turned back they were detained at the railway
crossing by the barrier being let down. A long goods train was
passing, dragged by two engines, breathing heavily, and flinging
puffs of crimson fire out of their funnels.
The foremost engine uttered a piercing whistle at the crossing in
sight of the station.
"It's whistling, . . ." said Dashutka.
The train had passed at last, and the signalman lifted the barrier
without haste.
"Is that you, Yakov Ivanitch? I didn't know you, so you'll be rich."
And then when they had reached home they had to go to bed.
Aglaia and Dashutka made themselves a bed in the tea-room and lay
down side by side, while Yakov stretched himself on the counter.
They neither said their prayers nor lighted the ikon lamp before
lying down to sleep. All three lay awake till morning, but did not
utter a single word, and it seemed to them that all night someone
was walking about in the empty storey overhead.
Two days later a police inspector and the examining magistrate came
from the town and made a search, first in Matvey's room and then
in the whole tavern. They questioned Yakov first of all, and he
testified that on the Monday Matvey had gone to Vedenyapino to
confess, and that he must have been killed by the sawyers who were
working on the line.
And when the examining magistrate had asked him how it had happened
that Matvey was found on the road, while his cap had turned up at
home--surely he had not gone to Vedenyapino without his cap?--
and why they had not found a single drop of blood beside him in the
snow on the road, though his head was smashed in and his face and
chest were black with blood, Yakov was confused, lost his head and
answered:
"I cannot tell."
And just what Yakov had so feared happened: the policeman came, the
district police officer smoked in the prayer-room and Aglaia fell
upon him with abuse and was rude to the police inspector; and
afterwards when Yakov and Aglaia were led out to the yard, the
peasants crowded at the gates and said, "They are taking the Godlies!"
and it seemed that they were all glad.
At the inquiry the policeman stated positively that Yakov and Aglaia
had killed Matvey in order not to share with him, and that Matvey
had money of his own, and that if it was not found at the search
evidently Yakov and Aglaia had got hold of it. And Dashutka was
questioned. She said that Uncle Matvey and Aunt Aglaia quarrelled
and almost fought every day over money, and that Uncle Matvey was
rich, so much so that he had given someone--"his Darling"--nine
hundred roubles.
Dashutka was left alone in the tavern. No one came now to drink tea
or vodka, and she divided her time between cleaning up the rooms,
drinking mead and eating rolls; but a few days later they questioned
the signalman at the railway crossing, and he said that late on
Monday evening he had seen Yakov and Dashutka driving from Limarovo.
Dashutka, too, was arrested, taken to the town and put in prison.
It soon became known, from what Aglaia said, that Sergey Nikanoritch
had been present at the murder. A search was made in his room, and
money was found in an unusual place, in his snowboots under the
stove, and the money was all in small change, three hundred one-rouble
notes. He swore he had made this money himself, and that he hadn't
been in the tavern for a year, but witnesses testified that he was
poor and had been in great want of money of late, and that he used
to go every day to the tavern to borrow from Matvey; and the policeman
described how on the day of the murder he had himself gone twice
to the tavern with the waiter to help him to borrow. It was recalled
at this juncture that on Monday evening Sergey Nikanoritch had not
been there to meet the passenger train, but had gone off somewhere.
And he, too, was arrested and taken to the town.
The trial took place eleven months later.
Yakov Ivanitch looked much older and much thinner, and spoke in a
low voice like a sick man. He felt weak, pitiful, lower in stature
that anyone else, and it seemed as though his soul, too, like his
body, had grown older and wasted, from the pangs of his conscience
and from the dreams and imaginings which never left him all the
while he was in prison. When it came out that he did not go to
church the president of the court asked him:
"Are you a dissenter?"
"I can't tell," he answered.
He had no religion at all now; he knew nothing and understood
nothing; and his old belief was hateful to him now, and seemed to
him darkness and folly. Aglaia was not in the least subdued, and
she still went on abusing the dead man, blaming him for all their
misfortunes. Sergey Nikanoritch had grown a beard instead of whiskers.
At the trial he was red and perspiring, and was evidently ashamed
of his grey prison coat and of sitting on the same bench with humble
peasants. He defended himself awkwardly, and, trying to prove that
he had not been to the tavern for a whole year, got into an altercation
with every witness, and the spectators laughed at him. Dashutka had
grown fat in prison. At the trial she did not understand the questions
put to her, and only said that when they killed Uncle Matvey she
was dreadfully frightened, but afterwards she did not mind.
All four were found guilty of murder with mercenary motives. Yakov
Ivanitch was sentenced to penal servitude for twenty years; Aglaia
for thirteen and a half; Sergey Nikanoritch to ten; Dashutka to
six.