The Seven Who Were Hanged Part 12

"I don't want to be hanged."

They became silent. Werner again found the Esthonian's hand and pressed it firmly between his dry, burning palms. Yanson's hand lay motionless, like a board, but he made no longer any effort to withdraw it.

It was close and suffocating in the carriage. The air was filled with the smell of soldiers' clothes, mustiness, and the leather of wet boots.

The young gendarme who sat opposite Werner breathed warmly upon him, and in his breath there was the odor of onions and cheap tobacco. But some brisk, fresh air came in through certain clefts, and because of this, spring was felt even more intensely in this small, stifling, moving box, than outside. The carriage kept turning now to the right, now to the left, now it seemed to turn back. At times it seemed as though they had been turning around on one and the same spot for hours for some reason or other. At first a bluish electric light penetrated through the lowered, heavy window shades; then suddenly, after a certain turn it grew dark, and only by this could they guess that they had turned into deserted streets in the outskirts of the city and that they were nearing the S. railroad station. Sometimes during sharp turns, Werner's live, bent knee would strike against the live, bent knee of the gendarme, and it was hard to believe that the execution was approaching.

"Where are we going?" Yanson asked suddenly. He was somewhat dizzy from the continuous turning of the dark box and he felt slightly sick at his stomach.

Werner answered and pressed the Esthonian's hand more firmly. He felt like saying something especially kind and caressing to this little, sleepy man, and he already loved him as he had never loved anyone in his life.

"You don't seem to sit comfortably, my dear man. Move over here, to me."

Yanson was silent for awhile, then he replied:

"Well, thank you. I'm sitting all right. Are they going to hang you too?"

"Yes," answered Werner, almost laughing with unexpected jollity, and he waved his hand easily and freely, as though he were speaking of some absurd and trifling joke which kind but terribly comical people wanted to play on him.

"Have you a wife?" asked Yanson.

"No. I have no wife. I am single."

"I am also alone. Alone," said Yanson.

Werner's head also began to feel dizzy. And at times it seemed that they were going to some festival; strange to say, almost all those who went to the scaffold experienced the same sensation and mingled with sorrow and fear there was a vague joy as they antic.i.p.ated the extraordinary thing that was soon to befall them. Reality was intoxicated with madness and Death, united with Life, brought forth apparitions. It seemed very possible that flags were waving over the houses.

"We have arrived!" said Werner gayly when the carriage stopped, and he jumped out easily. But with Yanson it was a rather slow affair: silently and very drowsily he resisted and would not come out. He seized the k.n.o.b. The gendarme opened the weak fingers and pulled his hand away.

Then Yanson seized the corner of the carriage, the door, the high wheel, but immediately let it go upon the slightest effort on the part of the gendarme. He did not exactly seize these things; he rather cleaved to each object sleepily and silently, and was torn away easily, without any effort. Finally he got up.

There were no flags. The railroad station was dark, deserted and lifeless; the pa.s.senger trains were not running any longer, and the train which was silently waiting for these pa.s.sengers on the way needed no bright light, no commotion. Suddenly Werner began to feel weary.

It was not fear, nor anguish, but a feeling of enormous, painful, tormenting weariness which makes one feel like going off somewhere, lying down and closing one's eyes very tightly. Werner stretched himself and yawned slowly. Yanson also stretched himself and quickly yawned several times.

"I wish they'd be quicker about it," said Werner wearily. Yanson was silent, shrinking together.

When the condemned moved along the deserted platform which was surrounded by soldiers, to the dimly lighted cars, Werner found himself near Sergey Golovin; Sergey, pointing with his hand somewhere aside, began to say something, but only the word "lantern" was heard distinctly, and the rest was drowned in slow and weary yawning.

"What did you say?" asked Werner, also yawning.

"The lantern. The lamp in the lantern is smoking," said Sergey. Werner looked around. Indeed, the lamp in the lantern was smoking very much, and the gla.s.s had already turned black on top.

"Yes, it is smoking."

Suddenly he thought: "What have I to do with the smoking of the lamp, since---"

Sergey apparently thought the same, as he glanced quickly at Werner and turned away. But both stopped yawning.

They all went to the cars themselves, only Yanson had to be led by the arms. At first he stamped his feet and his boots seemed to stick to the boards of the platform. Then he bent his knees and fell into the arms of the gendarmes, his feet dangled like those of a very intoxicated man, and the tips of the boots sc.r.a.ped against the wood. It took a long time until he was silently pushed through the door.

Vasily Kashirin also moved himself, unconsciously imitating the movements of his comrades--he did everything as they did. But on boarding the platform of the car, he stumbled, and a gendarme took him by the elbow to support him. Vasily shuddered and screamed shrilly, drawing back his arm:

"Ai!"

"What is it, Vasya?" Werner rushed over to him. Vasily was silent, trembling in every limb. The confused and even offended gendarme explained:

"I wanted to keep him from falling, and he--"

"Come, Vasya, let me hold you," said Werner, about to take him by the arm. But Vasily drew back his arm again and cried more loudly than before:

"Ai!"

"Vasya, it is I, Werner."

"I know. Don't touch me. I'll go myself."

And continuing to tremble he entered the car himself and seated himself in a corner. Bending over to Musya, Werner asked her softly, pointing with his eyes at Vasily:

"How about him?"

"Bad," answered Musya, also in a soft voice. "He is dead already.

Werner, tell me, is there such a thing as death?"

"I don't know, Musya, but I think that there is no such thing," replied Werner seriously and thoughtfully.

"That's what I have thought. But he? I was tortured with him in the carriage--it was like riding with a corpse."

"I don't know, Musya. Perhaps there is such a thing as death for some people. Meanwhile, perhaps, but later there will be no death. For me death also existed before, but now it exists no longer."

Musya's somewhat paled cheeks flushed as she asked:

"It did exist, Werner? It did?"

"It did. But not now any longer. Just the same as with you."

A noise was heard in the doorway of the car. Mishka Tsiganok entered, stamping noisily with his heels, breathing loudly and spitting. He cast a swift glance and stopped obdurately.

"No room here, gendarme!" he shouted to the tired gendarme who looked at him angrily. "You make it so that I am comfortable here, otherwise I won't go--hang me here on the lamp-post. What a carriage they gave me, dogs! Is that a carriage? It's the devil's belly, not a carriage!"

But suddenly he bent down his head, stretched out his neck and thus went forward to the others. Out of the disheveled frame of hair and beard his black eyes looked wildly and sharply with an almost insane expression.

"Ah, gentlemen!" he drawled out. "So that's what it is. h.e.l.lo, master!"

He thrust his hand to Werner and sat down opposite him. And bending closely over to him, he winked one eye and quickly pa.s.sed his hand over his throat.

"You, too? What?"

"Yes!" smiled Werner.

"Are all of us to be hanged?"