The Seven Who Were Hanged Part 3

And from these monotonously repeated words, and from the fact that each day came, pa.s.sed and ended as every ordinary day had pa.s.sed, Yanson became convinced that there would be no execution. He began to lose all memory of the trial, and would roll about all day long on his cot, vaguely and happily dreaming about the white melancholy fields, with their snow-mounds, about the refreshment bar at the railroad station, and about other things still more vague and bright. He was well fed in the prison, and somehow he began to grow stout rapidly and to a.s.sume airs.

"Now she would have liked me," he thought of his master's wife. "Now I am stout--not worse-looking than the master." But he longed for a drink of vodka, to drink and to take a ride on horseback, to ride fast, madly.

When the terrorists were arrested the news of it reached the prison.

And in answer to Yanson's usual question, the warden said eagerly and unexpectedly:

"It won't be long now!"

He looked at Yanson calmly with an air of importance and repeated:

"It won't be long now. I suppose in about a week."

Yanson turned pale, and as though falling asleep, so turbid was the look in his gla.s.sy eyes, asked:

"Are you joking?"

"First you could not wait, and now you think I am joking. We are not allowed to joke here. You like to joke, but we are not allowed to," said the warden with dignity as he went away.

Toward evening of that day Yanson had already grown thinner. His skin, which had stretched out and had become smooth for a time, was suddenly covered with a mult.i.tude of small wrinkles, and in places it seemed even to hang down. His eyes became sleepy, and all his motions were now so slow and languid as though each turn of the head, each move of the fingers, each step of the foot were a complicated and c.u.mbersome undertaking which required very careful deliberation. At night he lay on his cot, but did not close his eyes, and thus, heavy with sleep, they remained open until morning.

"Aha!" said the warden with satisfaction, seeing him on the following day. "This is no dramshop for you, my dear!"

With a feeling of pleasant gratification, like a scientist whose experiment had proved successful again, he examined the condemned man closely and carefully from head to foot. Now everything would go along as necessary. Satan was disgraced, the sacredness of the prison and the execution was re-established, and the old man inquired condescendingly, even with a feeling of sincere pity:

"Do you want to meet somebody or not?"

"What for?"

"Well, to say good-by! Have you no mother, for instance, or a brother?"

"I must not be hanged," said Yanson softly, and looked askance at the warden. "I don't want to be hanged."

The warden looked at him and waved his hand in silence.

Toward evening Yanson grew somewhat calmer.

The day had been so ordinary, the cloudy winter sky looked so ordinary, the footsteps of people and their conversation on matters of business sounded so ordinary, the smell of the sour soup of cabbage was so ordinary, customary and natural that he again ceased believing in the execution. But the night became terrible to him. Before this Yanson had felt the night simply as darkness, as an especially dark time, when it was necessary to go to sleep, but now he began to be aware of its mysterious and uncanny nature. In order not to believe in death, it was necessary to hear and see and feel ordinary things about him, footsteps, voices, light, the soup of sour cabbage. But in the dark everything was unnatural; the silence and the darkness were in themselves something like death.

And the longer the night dragged the more dreadful it became. With the ignorant innocence of a child or a savage, who believe everything possible, Yanson felt like crying to the sun: "Shine!" He begged, he implored that the sun should shine, but the night drew its long, dark hours remorselessly over the earth, and there was no power that could hasten its course. And this impossibility, arising for the first time before the weak consciousness of Yanson, filled him with terror. Still not daring to realize it clearly, he already felt the inevitability of approaching death, and felt himself making the first step upon the gallows, with benumbed feet.

Day quieted him, but night again filled him with fear, and so it was until one night when he realized fully that death was inevitable, that it would come in three days at dawn with the sunrise.

He had never thought of what death was, and it had no image to him--but now he realized clearly, he saw, he felt that it had entered his cell and was looking for him, groping about with its hands. And to save himself, he began to run wildly about the room.

But the cell was so small that it seemed that its corners were not sharp but dull, and that all of them were pushing him into the center of the room. And there was nothing behind which to hide. And the door was locked. And it was dark. Several times he struck his body against the walls, making no sound, and once he struck against the door--it gave forth a dull, empty sound. He stumbled over something and fell upon his face, and then he felt that IT was going to seize him. Lying on his stomach, holding to the floor, hiding his face in the dark, dirty asphalt, Yanson howled in terror. He lay; and cried at the top of his voice until some one came. And when he was lifted from the floor and seated upon the cot, and cold water was poured over his head, he still did not dare open his tightly closed eyes. He opened one eye, and noticing some one's boot in one of the corners of the room, he commenced crying again.

But the cold water began to produce its effect in bringing him to his senses. To help the effect, the warden on duty, the same old man, administered medicine to Yanson in the form of several blows upon the head. And this sensation of life returning to him really drove the fear of death away. Yanson opened his eyes, and then, his mind utterly confused, he slept soundly for the remainder of the night. He lay on his back, with mouth open, and snored loudly, and between his lashes, which were not tightly closed, his flat, dead eyes, which were upturned so that the pupil did not show, could be seen.

Later, everything in the world--day and night, footsteps, voices, the soup of sour cabbage, produced in him a continuous terror, plunging him into a state of savage uncomprehending astonishment. His weak mind was unable to combine these two things which so monstrously contradicted each other--the bright day, the odor and taste of cabbage--and the fact that two days later he must die. He did not think of anything. He did not even count the hours, but simply stood in mute stupefaction before this contradiction which tore his brain in two. And he became evenly pale, neither white nor redder in parts, and appeared to be calm. Only he ate nothing and ceased sleeping altogether. He sat all night long on a stool, his legs crossed under him, in fright. Or he walked about in his cell, quietly, stealthily, and sleepily looking about him on all sides. His mouth was half-open all the time, as though from incessant astonishment, and before taking the most ordinary thing into his hands, he would examine it stupidly for a long time, and would take it distrustfully.

When he became thus, the wardens as well as the sentinel who watched him through the little window, ceased paying further attention to him. This was the customary condition of prisoners, and reminded the wardens of cattle being led to slaughter after a staggering blow.

"Now he is stunned, now he will feel nothing until his very death," said the warden, looking at him with experienced eyes. "Ivan! Do you hear?

Ivan!"

"I must not be hanged," answered Yanson, in a dull voice, and his lower jaw again drooped.

"You should not have committed murder. You would not be hanged then,"

answered the chief warden, a young but very important-looking man with medals on his chest. "You committed murder, yet you do not want to be hanged?"

"He wants to kill human beings without paying for it. Fool! fool!" said another.

"I don't want to be hanged," said Yanson.

"Well, my friend, you may want it or not, that's your affair," replied the chief warden indifferently. "Instead of talking nonsense, you had better arrange your affairs. You still have something."

"He has nothing. One shirt and a suit of clothes. And a fur cap! A sport!"

Thus time pa.s.sed until Thursday. And on Thursday, at midnight a number of people entered Yanson's cell, and one man, with shoulder-straps, said:

"Well, get ready. We must go."

Yanson, moving slowly and drowsily as before, put on everything he had and tied his muddy-red m.u.f.fler about his neck. The man with shoulder-straps, smoking a cigarette, said to some one while watching Yanson dress:

"What a warm day this will be. Real spring."

Yanson's small eyes were closing; he seemed to be falling asleep, and he moved so slowly and stiffly that the warden cried to him:

"Hey, there! Quicker! Have you fallen asleep?"

Suddenly Yanson stopped.

"I don't want to be hanged," said he.

He was taken by the arms and led away, and began to stride obediently, raising his shoulders. Outside he found himself in the moist, spring air, and beads of sweat stood under his little nose. Notwithstanding that it was night, it was thawing very strongly and drops of water were dripping upon the stones. And waiting while the soldiers, clanking their sabres and bending their heads, were stepping into the unlighted black carriage, Yanson lazily moved his finger under his moist nose and adjusted the badly tied m.u.f.fler about his neck.

CHAPTER IV WE COME FROM ORYOL

The same council-chamber of the military district court which had condemned Yanson had also condemned to death a peasant of the Government of Oryol, of the District of Yeletzk, Mikhail Golubets, nicknamed Tsiganok, also Tatarin. His latest crime, proven beyond question, had been the murder of three people and armed robbery. Behind that, his dark past disappeared in a depth of mystery. There were vague rumors that he had partic.i.p.ated in a series of other murders and robberies, and in his path there was felt to be a dark trail of blood, fire, and drunken debauchery. He called himself murderer with utter frankness and sincerity, and scornfully regarded those who, according to the latest fashion, styled themselves "expropriators." Of his last crime, since it was useless for him to deny anything, he spoke freely and in detail, but in answer to questions about his past, he merely gritted his teeth, whistled, and said:

"Search for the wind of the fields!"

When he was annoyed in cross-examination, Tsiganok a.s.sumed a serious and dignified air:

"All of us from Oryol are thoroughbreds," he would say gravely and deliberately. "Oryol and Kroma are the homes of first-cla.s.s thieves.

Karachev and Livna are the breeding-places of thieves. And Yeletz--is the parent of all thieves. Now--what else is there to say?"