"Oh, a kind soul turned up who tried to set fire to it. Luckily I
caught him in the act; now I am taking him to the town."
"Was it Akim, I wonder?" Yefrem asked slowly.
"How did you know? Akim. He came at night with a burning log in a pot
and got into the yard and was setting fire to it ... all my men are
witnesses. Would you like to see him? It's time for us to take him, by
the way."
"My good Naum Ivanitch," Yefrem began, "let him go, don't ruin the old
man altogether. Don't take that sin upon your soul, Naum Ivanitch.
Only think--the man was in despair--he didn't know what he was doing."
"Give over that nonsense," Naum cut him short. "What! Am I likely to
let him go! Why, he'd set fire to the house to-morrow if I did."
"He wouldn't, Naum Ivanitch, believe me. Believe me you will be easier
yourself for it--you know there will be questions asked, a trial--you
can see that for yourself."
"Well, what if there is a trial? I have no reason to be afraid of it."
"My good Naum Ivanitch, one must be afraid of a trial."
"Oh, that's enough. I see you are drunk already, and to-day a saint's
day, too!"
Yefrem all at once, quite unexpectedly, burst into tears.
"I am drunk but I am speaking the truth," he muttered. "And for the
sake of the holiday you ought to forgive him."
"Well, come along, you sniveller."
And Naum went out on to the steps.
"Forgive him, for Avdotya Arefyevna's sake," said Yefrem following him
on to the steps.
Naum went to the cellar and flung the door wide open. With timid
curiosity Yefrem craned his neck from behind Naum and with difficulty
made out the figure of Akim in the corner of the cellar. The once
well-to-do innkeeper, respected all over the neighbourhood, was
sitting on straw with his hands tied behind him like a criminal.
Hearing a noise he raised his head.... It seemed as though he had
grown fearfully thin in those last few days, especially during the
previous night--his sunken eyes could hardly be seen under his high,
waxen-yellow forehead, his parched lips looked dark ... his whole face
was changed and wore a strange expression--savage and frightened.
"Get up and come along," said Naum.
Akim got up and stepped over the threshold.
"Akim Semyonitch!" Yefrem wailed, "you've brought ruin on yourself, my
dear!"
Akim glanced at him without speaking.
"If I had known why you asked for vodka I would not have given it to
you, I really would not. I believe I would have drunk it all myself!
Eh, Naum Ivanitch," he added clutching at Naum's arm, "have mercy upon
him, let him go!"
"What next!" Naum replied with a grin. "Well, come along," he added
addressing Akim again. "What are you waiting for?"
"Naum Ivanitch," Akim began.
"What is it?"
"Naum Ivanitch," Akim repeated, "listen: I am to blame; I wanted to
settle my accounts with you myself; but God must be the judge between
us. You have taken everything from me, you know yourself, everything I
had. Now you can ruin me, only I tell you this: if you let me go now,
then--so be it--take possession of everything! I agree and wish you
all success. I promise you as before God, if you let me go you will
not regret it. God be with you."
Akim shut his eyes and ceased speaking.
"A likely story!" retorted Naum, "as though one could believe you!"
"But, by God, you can," said Yefrem, "you really can. I'd stake my
life on Akim Semyonitch's good faith--I really would."
"Nonsense," cried Naum. "Come along."
Akim looked at him.
"As you think best, Naum Ivanitch. It's for you to decide. But you are
laying a great burden on your soul. Well, if you are in such a hurry,
let us start."
Naum in his turn looked keenly at Akim.
"After all," he thought to himself, "hadn't I better let him go? Or
people will never have done pestering me about him. Avdotya will give
me no peace." While Naum was reflecting, no one uttered a word. The
labourer in the cart who could see it all through the gate did nothing
but toss his head and flick the horse's sides with the reins. The two
other labourers stood on the steps and they too were silent.
"Well, listen, old man," Naum began, "when I let you go and tell these
fellows" (he motioned with his head towards the labourers) "not to
talk, shall we be quits--do you understand me--quits ... eh?"
"I tell you, you can have it all."
"You won't consider me in your debt?"
"You won't be in my debt, I shall not be in yours."
Naum was silent again.
"And will you swear it?"
"Yes, as God is holy," answered Akim.
"Well, I know I shall regret it," said Naum, "but there, come what
may! Give me your hands."
Akim turned his back to him; Naum began untying him.
"Now, mind, old man," he added as he pulled the cord off his wrists,
"remember, I have spared you, mind that!"
"Naum Ivanitch, my dear," faltered Yefrem, "the Lord will have mercy
upon you!"
Akim freed his chilled and swollen hands and was moving towards the
gate.
Naum suddenly "showed the Jew" as the saying is--he must have
regretted that he had let Akim off.
"You've sworn now, mind!" he shouted after him. Akim turned, and
looking round the yard, said mournfully, "Possess it all, so be it
forever! ... Good-bye."
And he went slowly out into the road accompanied by Yefrem. Naum
ordered the horse to be unharnessed and with a wave of his hand went
back into the house.
"Where are you off to, Akim Semyonitch? Aren't you coming back to me?"
cried Yefrem, seeing that Akim was hurrying to the right out of the
high road.
"No, Yefremushka, thank you," answered Akim. "I am going to see what
my wife is doing."
"You can see afterwards.... But now we ought to celebrate the
occasion."
"No, thank you, Yefrem.... I've had enough. Good-bye."
And Akim walked off without looking round.
"Well! 'I've had enough'!" the puzzled sacristan pronounced. "And I
pledged my word for him! Well, I never expected this," he added, with
vexation, "after I had pledged my word for him, too!"
He remembered that he had not thought to take his knife and his pot
and went back to the inn.... Naum ordered his things to be given to
him but never even thought of offering him a drink. He returned home
thoroughly annoyed and thoroughly sober.
"Well?" his wife inquired, "found?"
"Found what?" answered Yefrem, "to be sure I've found it: here is your
pot."
"Akim?" asked his wife with especial emphasis.
Yefrem nodded his head.
"Yes. But he is a nice one! I pledged my word for him; if it had not
been for me he'd be lying in prison, and he never offered me a drop!
Ulyana Fyodorovna, you at least might show me consideration and give
me a glass!"
But Ulyana Fyodorovna did not show him consideration and drove him out
of her sight.
Meanwhile, Akim was walking with slow steps along the road to Lizaveta
Prohorovna's house. He could not yet fully grasp his position; he was
trembling all over like a man who had just escaped from a certain
death. He seemed unable to believe in his freedom. In dull
bewilderment he gazed at the fields, at the sky, at the larks
quivering in the warm air. From the time he had woken up on the
previous morning at Yefrem's he had not slept, though he had lain on
the stove without moving; at first he had wanted to drown in vodka the
insufferable pain of humiliation, the misery of frenzied and impotent
anger ... but the vodka had not been able to stupefy him completely;
his anger became overpowering and he began to think how to punish the
man who had wronged him.... He thought of no one but Naum; the idea of
Lizaveta Prohorovna never entered his head and on Avdotya he mentally
turned his back. By the evening his thirst for revenge had grown to a
frenzy, and the good-natured and weak man waited with feverish
impatience for the approach of night and ran, like a wolf to its prey,
to destroy his old home.... But then he had been caught ... locked
up.... The night had followed. What had he not thought over during
that cruel night! It is difficult to put into words all that a man
passes through at such moments, all the tortures that he endures; more
difficult because those tortures are dumb and inarticulate in the man
himself.... Towards morning, before Naum and Yefrem had come to the
door, Akim had begun to feel as it were more at ease. Everything is
lost, he thought, everything is scattered and gone ... and he
dismissed it all. If he had been naturally bad-hearted he might at
that moment have become a criminal; but evil was not natural to Akim.
Under the shock of undeserved and unexpected misfortune, in the
delirium of despair he had brought himself to crime; it had shaken him
to the depths of his being and, failing, had left in him nothing but
intense weariness.... Feeling his guilt in his mind he mentally tore
himself from all things earthly and began praying, bitterly but
fervently. At first he prayed in a whisper, then perhaps by accident
he uttered a loud "Oh, God!" and tears gushed from his eyes.... For a
long time he wept and at last grew quieter.... His thoughts would
probably have changed if he had had to pay the penalty of his
attempted crime ... but now he had suddenly been set free ... and he
was walking to see his wife, feeling only half alive, utterly crushed
but calm.
Lizaveta Prohorovna's house stood about a mile from her village to the
left of the cross road along which Akim was walking. He was about to
stop at the turning that led to his mistress's house ... but he walked
on instead. He decided first to go to what had been his hut, where his
uncle lived.
Akim's small and somewhat dilapidated hut was almost at the end of the
village; Akin walked through the whole street without meeting a soul.
All the people were at church. Only one sick old woman raised a little
window to look after him and a little girl who had run out with an
empty pail to the well gaped at him, and she too looked after him. The
first person he met was the uncle he was looking for. The old man had
been sitting all the morning on the ledge under his window taking
pinches of snuff and warming himself in the sun; he was not very well,
so he had not gone to church; he was just setting off to visit another
old man, a neighbour who was also ailing, when he suddenly saw
Akim.... He stopped, let him come up to him and glancing into his
face, said:
"Good-day, Akimushka!"
"Good-day," answered Akim, and passing the old man went in at the
gate. In the yard were standing his horses, his cow, his cart; his
poultry, too, were there.... He went into the hut without a word. The
old man followed him. Akim sat down on the bench and leaned his fists
on it. The old man standing at the door looked at him compassionately.
"And where is my wife?" asked Akim.
"At the mistress's house," the old man answered quickly. "She is
there. They put your cattle here and what boxes there were, and she
has gone there. Shall I go for her?"
Akim was silent for a time.
"Yes, do," he said at last.
"Oh, uncle, uncle," he brought out with a sigh while the old man was
taking his hat from a nail, "do you remember what you said to me the
day before my wedding?"
"It's all God's will, Akimushka."
"Do you remember you said to me that I was above you peasants, and now
you see what times have come.... I'm stripped bare myself."
"There's no guarding oneself from evil folk," answered the old man,
"if only someone such as a master, for instance, or someone in
authority, could give him a good lesson, the shameless fellow--but as
it is, he has nothing to be afraid of. He is a wolf and he behaves
like one." And the old man put on his cap and went off.
Avdotya had just come back from church when she was told that her
husband's uncle was asking for her. Till then she had rarely seen him;
he did not come to see them at the inn and had the reputation of being
queer altogether: he was passionately fond of snuff and was usually
silent.
She went out to him.
"What do you want, Petrovitch? Has anything happened?"
"Nothing has happened, Avdotya Arefyevna; your husband is asking for
you."
"Has he come back?"
"Yes."
"Where is he, then?"
"He is in the village, sitting in his hut."
Avdotya was frightened.
"Well, Petrovitch," she inquired, looking straight into his face, "is
he angry?"
"He does not seem so."
Avdotya looked down.
"Well, let us go," she said. She put on a shawl and they set off
together. They walked in silence to the village. When they began to
get close to the hut, Avdotya was so overcome with terror that her
knees began to tremble.
"Good Petrovitch," she said, "go in first.... Tell him that I have
come."
The old man went into the hut and found Akim lost in thought, sitting
just as he had left him.
"Well?" said Akim raising his head, "hasn't she come?"
"Yes," answered the old man, "she is at the gate...."
"Well, send her in here."
The old man went out, beckoned to Avdotya, said to her, "go in," and
sat down again on the ledge. Avdotya in trepidation opened the door,
crossed the threshold and stood still.
Akim looked at her.
"Well, Arefyevna," he began, "what are we going to do now?"
"I am guilty," she faltered.
"Ech Arefyevna, we are all sinners. What's the good of talking about
it!"
"It's he, the villain, has ruined us both," said Avdotya in a cringing
voice, and tears flowed down her face. "You must not leave it like
that, Akim Semyonitch, you must get the money back. Don't think of me.
I am ready to take my oath that I only lent him the money. Lizaveta
Prohorovna could sell our inn if she liked, but why should he rob
us.... Get your money back."
"There's no claiming the money back from him," Akim replied grimly,
"we have settled our accounts."