VASSILY knew well that cell on the upper floor. He knew its floor, and
began at once to take out bits of it. When he had managed to get under
the floor he took out pieces of the ceiling beneath, and jumped down
into the mortuary a floor below. That day only one corpse was lying on
the table. There in the corner of the room were stored bags to make hay
mattresses for the prisoners. Vassily knew about the bags, and that
was why the mortuary served his purposes. The prop in the door had been
unscrewed and put in again. He took it out, opened the door, and went
out into the passage to the lavatory which was being built. In the
lavatory was a large hole connecting the third floor with the basement
floor. After having found the door of the lavatory he went back to the
mortuary, stripped the sheet off the dead body which was as cold as ice
(in taking off the sheet Vassily touched his hand), took the bags, tied
them together to make a rope, and carried the rope to the lavatory. Then
he attached it to the cross-beam, and climbed down along it. The rope
did not reach the ground, but he did not know how much was wanting.
Anyhow, he had to take the risk. He remained hanging in the air, and
then jumped down. His legs were badly hurt, but he could still walk on.
The basement had two windows; he could have climbed out of one of them
but for the grating protecting them. He had to break the grating, but
there was no tool to do it with. Vassily began to look around him, and
chanced on a piece of plank with a sharp edge; armed with that weapon he
tried to loosen the bricks which held the grating. He worked a long time
at that task. The cock crowed for the second time, but the grating still
held. At last he had loosened one side; and then he pushed the plank
under the loosened end and pressed with all his force. The grating gave
way completely, but at that moment one of the bricks fell down heavily.
The noise could have been heard by the sentry. Vassily stood motionless.
But silence reigned. He climbed out of the window. His way of escape was
to climb the wall. An outhouse stood in the corner of the courtyard. He
had to reach its roof, and pass thence to the top of the wall. But he
would not be able to reach the roof without the help of the plank; so he
had to go back through the basement window to fetch it. A moment later
he came out of the window with the plank in his hands; he stood still
for a while listening to the steps of the sentry. His expectations were
justified. The sentry was walking up and down on the other side of the
courtyard. Vassily came up to the outhouse, leaned the plank against it,
and began climbing. The plank slipped and fell on the ground. Vassily
had his stockings on; he took them off so that he could cling with his
bare feet in coming down. Then he leaned the plank again against the
house, and seized the water-pipe with his hands. If only this time
the plank would hold! A quick movement up the water-pipe, and his knee
rested on the roof. The sentry was approaching. Vassily lay motionless.
The sentry did not notice him, and passed on. Vassily leaped to his
feet; the iron roof cracked under him. Another step or two, and he would
reach the wall. He could touch it with his hand now. He leaned forward
with one hand, then with the other, stretched out his body as far as
he could, and found himself on the wall. Only, not to break his legs in
jumping down, Vassily turned round, remained hanging in the air by his
hands, stretched himself out, loosened the grip of one hand, then the
other. “Help, me, God!” He was on the ground. And the ground was soft.
His legs were not hurt, and he ran at the top of his speed. In a suburb,
Malania opened her door, and he crept under her warm coverlet, made of
small pieces of different colours stitched together.
X
THE wife of Peter Nikolaevich Sventizky, a tall and handsome woman, as
quiet and sleek as a well-fed heifer, had seen from her window how her
husband had been murdered and dragged away into the fields. The horror
of such a sight to Natalia Ivanovna was so intense--how could it be
otherwise?--that all her other feelings vanished. No sooner had the
crowd disappeared from view behind the garden fence, and the voices had
become still; no sooner had the barefooted Malania, their servant, run
in with her eyes starting out of her head, calling out in a voice
more suited to the proclamation of glad tidings the news that Peter
Nikolaevich had been murdered and thrown into the ravine, than Natalia
Ivanovna felt that behind her first sensation of horror, there was
another sensation; a feeling of joy at her deliverance from the tyrant,
who through all the nineteen years of their married life had made her
work without a moment’s rest. Her joy made her aghast; she did not
confess it to herself, but hid it the more from those around. When
his mutilated, yellow and hairy body was being washed and put into the
coffin, she cried with horror, and wept and sobbed. When the coroner--a
special coroner for serious cases--came and was taking her evidence, she
noticed in the room, where the inquest was taking place, two peasants in
irons, who had been charged as the principal culprits. One of them was
an old man with a curly white beard, and a calm and severe countenance.
The other was rather young, of a gipsy type, with bright eyes and curly
dishevelled hair. She declared that they were the two men who had first
seized hold of Peter Nikolaevich’s hands. In spite of the gipsy-like
peasant looking at her with his eyes glistening from under his moving
eyebrows, and saying reproachfully: “A great sin, lady, it is. Remember
your death hour!”--in spite of that, she did not feel at all sorry for
them. On the contrary, she began to hate them during the inquest, and
wished desperately to take revenge on her husband’s murderers.
A month later, after the case, which was committed for trial by
court-martial, had ended in eight men being sentenced to hard labour,
and in two--the old man with the white beard, and the gipsy boy, as she
called the other--being condemned to be hanged, Natalia felt vaguely
uneasy. But unpleasant doubts soon pass away under the solemnity of a
trial. Since such high authorities considered that this was the right
thing to do, it must be right.
The execution was to take place in the village itself. One Sunday
Malania came home from church in her new dress and her new boots, and
announced to her mistress that the gallows were being erected, and that
the hangman was expected from Moscow on Wednesday. She also announced
that the families of the convicts were raging, and that their cries
could be heard all over the village.
Natalia Ivanovna did not go out of her house; she did not wish to see
the gallows and the people in the village; she only wanted what had to
happen to be over quickly. She only considered her own feelings, and did
not care for the convicts and their families.
On Tuesday the village constable called on Natalia Ivanovna. He was a
friend, and she offered him vodka and preserved mushrooms of her
own making. The constable, after eating a little, told her that the
execution was not to take place the next day.
“Why?”
“A very strange thing has happened. There is no hangman to be found.
They had one in Moscow, my son told me, but he has been reading the
Gospels a good deal and says: ‘I will not commit a murder.’ He had
himself been sentenced to hard labour for having committed a murder, and
now he objects to hang when the law orders him. He was threatened with
flogging. ‘You may flog me,’ he said, ‘but I won’t do it.’”
Natalia Ivanovna grew red and hot at the thought which suddenly came
into her head.
“Could not the death sentence be commuted now?”
“How so, since the judges have passed it? The Czar alone has the right
of amnesty.”
“But how would he know?”
“They have the right of appealing to him.”
“But it is on my account they are to die,” said that stupid woman,
Natalia Ivanovna. “And I forgive them.”
The constable laughed. “Well--send a petition to the Czar.”
“May I do it?”
“Of course you may.”
“But is it not too late?”
“Send it by telegram.”
“To the Czar himself?”
“To the Czar, if you like.”
The story of the hangman having refused to do his duty, and preferring
to take the flogging instead, suddenly changed the soul of Natalia
Ivanovna. The pity and the horror she felt the moment she heard that the
peasants were sentenced to death, could not be stifled now, but filled
her whole soul.
“Filip Vassilievich, my friend. Write that telegram for me. I want to
appeal to the Czar to pardon them.”
The constable shook his head. “I wonder whether that would not involve
us in trouble?”
“I do it upon my own responsibility. I will not mention your name.”
“Is not she a kind woman,” thought the constable. “Very kind-hearted,
to be sure. If my wife had such a heart, our life would be a paradise,
instead of what it is now.” And he wrote the telegram,--“To his Imperial
Majesty, the Emperor. Your Majesty’s loyal subject, the widow of Peter
Nikolaevich Sventizky, murdered by the peasants, throws herself at the
sacred feet (this sentence, when he wrote it down, pleased the constable
himself most of all) of your Imperial Majesty, and implores you to grant
an amnesty to the peasants so and so, from such a province, district,
and village, who have been sentenced to death.”
The telegram was sent by the constable himself, and Natalia Ivanovna
felt relieved and happy. She had a feeling that since she, the widow of
the murdered man, had forgiven the murderers, and was applying for an
amnesty, the Czar could not possibly refuse it.