The verdict concerning the five terrorists was pronounced finally and
confirmed upon the same day. The condemned were not told when the
execution would take place, but they knew from the usual procedure that
they would be hanged the same night, or, at the very latest, upon the
following night. And when it was proposed to them that they meet their
relatives upon the following Thursday they understood that the
execution would take place on Friday at dawn.
Tanya Kovalchuk had no near relatives, and those whom she had were
somewhere in the wilderness in Little Russia, and it was not likely
that they even knew of the trial or of the coming execution. Musya and
Werner, as unidentified people, were not supposed to have relatives,
and only two, Sergey Golovin and Vasily Kashirin, were to meet their
parents. Both of them looked upon that meeting with terror and anguish,
yet they dared not refuse the old people the last word, the last kiss.
Sergey Golovin was particularly tortured by the thought of the coming
meeting. He dearly loved his father and mother; he had seen them but a
short while before, and now he was in a state of terror as to what
would happen when they came to see him. The execution itself, in all
its monstrous horror, in its brain-stunning madness, he could imagine
more easily, and it seemed less terrible than these other few moments
of meeting, brief and unsatisfactory, which seemed to reach beyond
time, beyond life itself. How to look, what to think, what to say, his
mind could not determine. The most simple and ordinary act, to take his
father by the hand, to kiss him, and to say, “How do you do, father?”
seemed to him unspeakably horrible in its monstrous, inhuman, absurd
deceitfulness.
After the sentence the condemned were not placed together in one cell,
as Tanya Kovalchuk had supposed they would be, but each was put in
solitary confinement, and all the morning, until eleven o’clock, when
his parents came, Sergey Golovin paced his cell furiously, tugged at
his beard, frowned pitiably and muttered inaudibly. Sometimes he would
stop abruptly, would breathe deeply and then exhale like a man who has
been too long under water. But he was so healthy, his young life was so
strong within him, that even in the moments of most painful suffering
his blood played under his skin, reddening his cheeks, and his blue
eyes shone brightly and frankly.
But everything was far different from what he had anticipated.
Nikolay Sergeyevich Golovin, Sergey’s father, a retired colonel, was
the first to enter the room where the meeting took place. He was all
white—his face, his beard, his hair, and his hands—as if he were a snow
statue attired in man’s clothes. He had on the same old but
well-cleaned coat, smelling of benzine, with new shoulder-straps
crosswise, that he had always worn, and he entered firmly, with an air
of stateliness, with strong and steady steps. He stretched out his
white, thin hand and said loudly:
“How do you do, Sergey?”
Behind him Sergey’s mother entered with short steps, smiling strangely.
But she also pressed his hands and repeated loudly:
“How do you do, Seryozhenka?”
She kissed him on the lips and sat down silently. She did not rush over
to him; she did not burst into tears; she did not break into a sob; she
did not do any of the terrible things which Sergey had feared. She just
kissed him and silently sat down. And with her trembling hands she even
adjusted her black silk dress.
Sergey did not know that the colonel, having locked himself all the
previous night in his little study, had deliberated upon this ritual
with all his power. “We must not aggravate, but ease the last moments
of our son,” resolved the colonel firmly, and he carefully weighed
every possible phase of the conversation, every act and movement that
might take place on the following day. But somehow he became confused,
forgetting what he had prepared, and he wept bitterly in the corner of
the oilcloth-covered couch. In the morning he explained to his wife how
she should behave at the meeting.
“The main thing is, kiss—and say nothing!” he taught her. “Later you
may speak—after a while—but when you kiss him, be silent. Don’t speak
right after the kiss, do you understand? Or you will say what you
should not say.”
“I understand, Nikolay Sergeyevich,” answered the mother, weeping.
“And you must not weep. For God’s sake, do not weep! You will kill him
if you weep, old woman!”
“Why do you weep?”
“With women one cannot help weeping. But you must not weep, do you
hear?”
“Very well, Nikolay Sergeyevich.”
Riding in the drozhky, he had intended to school her in the
instructions again, but he forgot. And so they rode in silence, bent,
both gray and old, and they were lost in thought, while the city was
gay and noisy. It was Shrovetide, and the streets were crowded.
They sat down. Then the colonel stood up, assumed a studied pose,
placing his right hand upon the border of his coat. Sergey sat for an
instant, looked closely upon the wrinkled face of his mother and then
jumped up.
“Be seated, Seryozhenka,” begged the mother.
“Sit down, Sergey,” repeated the father.
They became silent. The mother smiled.
“How we have petitioned for you, Seryozhenka! Father—”
“You should not have done that, mother——”
The colonel spoke firmly:
“We had to do it, Sergey, so that you should not think your parents had
forsaken you.”
They became silent again. It was terrible for them to utter even a
word, as though each word in the language had lost its individual
meaning and meant but one thing—Death. Sergey looked at his father’s
coat, which smelt of benzine, and thought: “They have no servant now,
consequently he must have cleaned it himself. How is it that I never
before noticed when he cleaned his coat? I suppose he does it in the
morning.” Suddenly he asked:
“And how is sister? Is she well?”
“Ninochka does not know anything,” the mother answered hastily.
The colonel interrupted her sternly: “Why should you tell a falsehood?
The child read it in the newspapers. Let Sergey know that
everybody—that those who are dearest to him—were thinking of him—at
this time—and—”
He could not say any more and stopped. Suddenly the mother’s face
contracted, then it spread out, became agitated, wet and wild-looking.
Her discolored eyes stared blindly, and her breathing became more
frequent, and briefer, louder.
“Se—Se—Se—Ser—” she repeated without moving her lips. “Ser—”
“Dear mother!”
The colonel strode forward, and all quivering in every fold of his
coat, in every wrinkle of his face, not understanding how terrible he
himself looked in his death-like whiteness, in his heroic, desperate
firmness. He said to his wife:
“Be silent! Don’t torture him! Don’t torture him! He has to die! Don’t
torture him!”
Frightened, she had already become silent, but he still shook his
clenched fists before him and repeated:
“Don’t torture him!”
Then he stepped back, placed his trembling hands behind his back, and
loudly, with an expression of forced calm, asked with pale lips:
“When?”
“To-morrow morning,” answered Sergey, his lips also pale.
The mother looked at the ground, chewing her lips, as if she did not
hear anything. And continuing to chew, she uttered these simple words,
strangely, as though they dropped like lead:
“Ninochka told me to kiss you, Seryozhenka.”
“Kiss her for me,” said Sergey.
“Very well. The Khvostovs send you their regards.”
“Which Khvostovs? Oh, yes!”
The colonel interrupted:
“Well, we must go. Get up, mother; we must go.” The two men lifted the
weakened old woman.
“Bid him good-by!” ordered the colonel. “Make the sign of the cross.”
She did everything as she was told. But as she made the sign of the
cross, and kissed her son a brief kiss, she shook her head and murmured
weakly:
“No, it isn’t the right way! It is not the right way! What will I say?
How will I say it? No, it is not the right way!”
“Good-by, Sergey!” said the father. They shook hands, and kissed each
other quickly but heartily.
“You—” began Sergey.
“Well?” asked the father abruptly.
“No, no! It is not the right way! How shall I say it?” repeated the
mother weakly, nodding her head. She had sat down again and was rocking
herself back and forth.
“You—” Sergey began again. Suddenly his face wrinkled pitiably,
childishly, and his eyes filled with tears immediately. Through the
sparkling gleams of his tears he looked closely into the white face of
his father, whose eyes had also filled.
“You, father, are a noble man!”
“What is that? What are you saying?” said the colonel, surprised. And
then suddenly, as if broken in two, he fell with his head upon his
son’s shoulder. He had been taller than Sergey, but now he became
short, and his dry, downy head lay like a white ball upon his son’s
shoulder. And they kissed silently and passionately: Sergey kissed the
silvery white hair, and the old man kissed the prisoner’s garb.
“And I?” suddenly said a loud voice.
They looked around. Sergey’s mother was standing, her head thrown back,
looking at them angrily, almost with contempt.
“What is it, mother?” cried the colonel.
“And I?” she said, shaking her head with insane intensity. “You
kiss—and I? You men! Yes? And I? And I?”
“Mother!” Sergey rushed over to her.
What took place then it is unnecessary and impossible to describe... .
The last words of the colonel were:
“I give you my blessing for your death, Seryozha. Die bravely, like an
officer.”
And they went away. Somehow they went away. They had been there, they
had stood, they had spoken—and suddenly they had gone. Here sat his
mother, there stood his father—and suddenly somehow they had gone away.
Returning to the cell, Sergey lay down on the cot, his face turned
toward the wall, in order to hide it from the soldiers, and he wept for
a long time. Then, exhausted by his tears, he slept soundly.
To Vasily Kashirin only his mother came. His father, who was a wealthy
tradesman, did not want to come. Vasily met the old woman, as he was
pacing up and down the room, trembling with cold, although it was warm,
even hot. And the conversation was brief, painful.
“It wasn’t worth coming, mother. You’ll only torture yourself and me.”
“Why did you do it, Vasya? Why did you do it? Oh, Lord!” The old woman
burst out weeping, wiping her face with the ends of her black, woolen
kerchief. And with the habit which he and his brothers had always had
of crying at their mother, who did not understand anything, he stopped,
and, shuddering as with cold, spoke angrily:
“There! You see! I knew it! You understand nothing, mother! Nothing!”
“Well—well—all right! Do you feel—cold?”
“Cold!” Vasily answered bluntly, and again began to pace the room,
looking at his mother askance, as if annoyed.
“Perhaps you have caught cold?”
“Oh, mother what is a cold, when—” and he waved his hand helplessly.
The old woman was about to say: “And your father ordered wheat cakes
beginning with Monday,” but she was frightened, and said:
“I told him: ‘It is your son, you should go, give him your blessing.’
No, the old beast persisted—”
“Let him go to the devil! What sort of father has he been to me? He has
been a scoundrel all his life, and remains a scoundrel!”
“Vasenka! Do you speak of your father like this?” said the old woman
reproachfully, straightening herself.
“About my father!”
“About your own father?”
“He is no father to me!”
It was strange and absurd. Before him was the thought of death, while
here something small, empty and trivial arose, and his words cracked
like the shells of nuts under foot. And almost crying with
sorrow—because of the eternal misunderstanding which all his life long
had stood like a wall between him and those nearest to him, and which
even now, in the last hour before death, peered at him stupidly and
strangely through small, widely opened eyes—Vasily exclaimed:
“Don’t you understand that I am to be hanged soon? Hanged! Do you
understand it? Hanged!”
“You shouldn’t have harmed anybody and nobody would—” cried the old
woman.
“My God! What is this? Even beasts do not act like this! Am I not your
son?”
He began to cry, and seated himself in a corner. The old woman also
burst out crying in her corner. Powerless, even for an instant, to
blend in a feeling of love and to offset by it the horror of impending
death, they wept their cold tears of loneliness which did not warm
their hearts. The mother said:
“You ask whether I am a mother to you? You reproach me! And I have
grown completely gray during these days. I have become an old woman.
And yet you say—you reproach me!”
“Well, mother, it is all right. Forgive me. It is time for you to go.
Kiss my brothers for me.”
“Am I not your mother? Do I not feel sorry?”
At last she went away. She wept bitterly, wiping her face with the
edges of her kerchief, and she did not see the road. And the farther
she got from the prison the more bitterly she wept. She retraced her
steps to the prison, and then she strangely lost her way in the city in
which she had been born, in which she lived to her old age. She
strolled into a deserted little garden with a few old, gnarled trees,
and she seated herself upon a wet bench, from which the snow had
melted.
And suddenly she understood. He was to be hanged upon the morrow!
The old woman jumped up, about to run, but suddenly her head began to
swim terribly and she fell to the ground. The icy path was wet and
slippery, and she could not rise. She turned about, lifted herself on
her elbows and knelt, then fell back on her side. The black kerchief
had slipped down, baring upon the back of her head a bald spot amid her
muddy-gray hair; and then somehow it seemed to her that she was
feasting at a wedding, that her son was getting married, and she had
been drinking wine and had become intoxicated.
“I can’t! My God! I can’t!” she cried, as though declining something.
Swaying her head, she crawled over the wet, frozen crust, and all the
time it seemed to her that they were pouring out more wine for her,
more wine!
And her heart had already begun to pain her from her intoxicated
laughter, from the rejoicing, from the wild dancing—and they kept on
pouring more wine for her—pouring more wine!