Now it was not Chouev, but Stepan who used to read the gospel in the
common cell. Some of the prisoners were singing coarse songs, while
others listened to Stepan reading the gospel and talking about what he
had read. The most attentive among those who listened were two of the
prisoners, Vassily, and a convict called Mahorkin, a murderer who had
become a hangman. Twice during his stay in this prison he was called
upon to do duty as hangman, and both times in far-away places where
nobody could be found to execute the sentences.
Two of the peasants who had killed Peter Nikolaevich Sventizky, had been
sentenced to the gallows, and Mahorkin was ordered to go to Pensa to
hang them. On all previous occasions he used to write a petition to the
governor of the province--he knew well how to read and to write--stating
that he had been ordered to fulfil his duty, and asking for money
for his expenses. But now, to the greatest astonishment of the prison
authorities, he said he did not intend to go, and added that he would
not be a hangman any more.
“And what about being flogged?” cried the governor of the prison.
“I will have to bear it, as the law commands us not to kill.”
“Did you get that from Pelageushkine? A nice sort of a prison prophet!
You just wait and see what this will cost you!”
When Mahin was told of that incident, he was greatly impressed by the
fact of Stepan’s influence on the hangman, who refused to do his duty,
running the risk of being hanged himself for insubordination.