"Oh, very well."
"I say--d'you know," added Pavel quickly. "Listen to what her advocate
says."
"I'll listen," said Ilya quietly, and added in a lower voice:
"So--good-bye--brother."
"Good-bye--we'll meet presently."
Gratschev turned away and walked quickly to one side. Ilya looked at
him with the sensation that Pavel had rubbed an open wound. Burning
sorrow possessed him, and an envious, evil feeling to see his friend
in a good new overcoat, looking, too, healthier, clearer in the face.
Gavrik's sister sat on the same bench with Pavel; he said something
to her, and she turned her head quickly to Lunev. When he saw her
expressive, eager face, he turned away and his soul was wrapped more
firmly and densely in dark feelings of injury, enmity and inability to
understand. His thoughts stormed giddily in his head like a whirlwind,
one tangled in another; suddenly they stopped--vanished; he felt a
void in his brain, and everything outside seemed to move against him
malevolently--and he ceased to follow the course of events.
Vyera had already been brought in. She stood behind the railing in
a grey dress, reaching to her heels like a night-gown, with a white
kerchief. A strand of yellow hair lay against her left temple, her
cheeks were pale, her lips compressed, and her eyes, widely opened,
rested earnestly and immovably on Gromov.
"Yes--yes--no--yes," her voice rang in Ilya's ears, as though muffled.
Gromov looked at her kindly, and spoke in a subdued low voice like a
cat purring.
"And do you plead guilty, Kapitanovna, that on that night----" his
insinuating voice glided on.
Lunev looked at Pavel; he sat bent forward, his head down, twisting
his fur cap in his hands. His neighbour, however, sat straight and
upright, and looked as though she were sitting in judgment on every one
there, Vyera and the judges and the public. Her head turned often from
side to side, her lips were compressed scornfully, and her proud eyes
glanced coldly and sternly from under her wrinkled brows.
"I plead guilty," said Vyera. Her voice broke and the sound was like
the ring of a cup that is cracked.
Two of the jury, Dodonov and his neighbour, a red-haired, clean-shaven
man, bent their heads together, moved their lips silently, and their
eyes, that rested on the girl, smiled. Petrusha, holding with both
hands to his chair, bent his whole body forward; his face was even
redder than usual and the ends of his moustache twitched; others of the
jury looked at Vyera, all with the same definite attentiveness, which
Lunev understood but hated furiously.
"They sit in judgment, and every one of them looks at her lustfully!"
he thought, and clenched his teeth; he longed to call out to Petrusha:
"You rascal! what are you thinking? Where are you? What is your duty?"
Something stuck in his throat, like a heavy ball, and hampered his
breath.
"Tell me, Kapitanovna," said Gromov lazily, while his eyes stood out
like those of a lustful he-goat, "have you-ah--practised prostitution
long?"
Vyera passed her hand over her face as though the question stuck fast
to her fiery red cheeks.
"A long time."
She answered firmly. A whisper ran among the people like a snake.
Gratschev bowed lower as though he would hide, and twisted his cap
ceaselessly.
"About how long?"
Vyera said nothing, but looked earnestly, seriously at Gromov out of
her wide-open eyes:
"One year? Two? Five?" persisted the president.
She was still silent; her grey figure stood as though hewn from stone,
only the ends of her kerchief quivered on her breast.
"You have the right not to reply, if you wish," said Gromov, stroking
his beard.
Now an advocate sprang up, a thin man with a small pointed beard and
long eyes. His nose was long and thin, and the nape of his neck wide so
that his face looked like a hatchet.
"Say, what compelled you to adopt this, this profession!" he said
loudly and clearly.
"Nothing compelled me," answered Vyera, her eyes fixed on the judge's.
"H'm, that's not altogether correct; you see, I know, you told me."
"You know nothing!" answered Vyera.
She turned her head towards him, and looking at him sternly, went on
angrily:
"I told you nothing, you yourself have made it all up!"
Her eyes glanced quickly over the audience, then she turned back to the
judges and asked with a movement of her head towards her defender:
"Need I answer him?"
A new hissing whisper crawled through the room, but louder and plainer.
Ilya shivered with the tension and looked at Gratschev. He expected
something from him, awaited it with confidence. But Pavel, looking out
from behind the shoulders of the people in front of him, sat silent and
motionless. Gromov smiled and said, his words were smooth and oily;
then Vyera began not loudly but quite firmly:
"It's quite simple. I wanted to be rich, so I took it, that is all,
there's nothing else, and I was always like that."
The jury began to whisper together; their faces grew dark and
displeasure appeared on the features of the judges. The room was
still; from the street came the dull regular sound of footsteps on the
pavement; soldiers were marching by outside.
"In view of the prisoner's confession," said the Prosecutor.
Ilya felt he could sit still no longer. He got up, and took a step
forward.
"Sh--silence!" said the usher loudly. He sat down again and hung his
head like Pavel. He could not see Petrusha's red face, now puffed out
importantly, and apparently annoyed at something; but for all the
unaltered friendliness of Gromov's face, he saw a cold heart behind the
kind demeanour of the judge, and he understood that this cheerful man
was accustomed to condemn men and women as a joiner is to plane boards.
And an angry, oppressive thought rose in Ilya's mind:
"If I confessed, it would be the same with me. Petrusha would judge; to
the prison with me, while he stays here."
At this he stopped and sat there, to listen, seeing nobody.
"I will not have you speak of it," came in a trembling, sorrowful cry
from Vyera; she screamed, cried, caught at her breast, and tore the
kerchief from her head.
"I will not. I will not."
A confused noise filled the room.
The girl's cry set all in movement, but she threw herself down behind
the railing as though burnt, and sobbed heart-brokenly.
"Don't torture me, let me go, for Christ's sake!"
Ilya sprang up and tried to force his way forward, but the people
opposed him and before he could realize it he found himself in the
corridor.
"They've stripped her soul," said the voice of the black-haired man.
Pavel, pale, and with dishevelled hair, stood against the wall, his
jaw quivering. Ilya went up to him and scowled at him in anger; people
stood or moved round them talking eagerly. There was a smell of tobacco
smoke in the air.
"It's imprisonment! She can scream till she's tired, it's all the same."
"She confessed, little fool!"
"But they found the money."
"Why didn't she say he gave it to her."
The words buzzed about the corridor like autumn flies, and penetrated
into Ilya's ears.
"What?" he asked Pavel gloomily and angrily, going quite close to him.
Pavel looked at him and opened his mouth but said nothing.
"You've ruined a human being," said Lunev. Pavel started as though he
had been lashed with a whip; he raised his hand, laid it on Ilya's
shoulder, and asked in a sorrowful voice:
"Is it my fault?"
Ilya shook off the hand from his shoulder; he wanted to say: "you--oh!
don't be afraid, no one called out that it was for you she stole," but
he said instead, "and Petrusha Filimonov to condemn her, that's as it
should be, isn't it?" and laughed.
Then with scorn in his face he went out into the street, and went
slowly along with a sense as though he were fast bound by invisible
cords. Anxiety lay like a heavy stone on his heart; it sent a coldness
through him confusing his thoughts, and until the evening he wandered
about aimlessly, from street to street, like a stray dog, tired and
hungry. No wish, no desire moved within him, and he saw nothing of all
that passed round about him, till at last a sick feeling of hunger
roused him from his brooding.