Short Fiction, Leo Tolstoy [general ebook reader .txt] 📗

went staggering along the road as though he were drunk, so full was he of the thoughts that came rushing into his mind.

Suddenly he saw the figure of a man coming towards him. He shouted. It was Efím, with a cudgel in his hand, guarding the serfs’ house.

“Ah, Daddy Semyón!” said Efím joyfully, drawing nearer (Efím felt it uncanny to be alone). “Have you got the recruits off, daddy?”

“We have. What are you after?”

“Why, I’ve been put here to guard Polikéy that’s hanged.”

“And where is he?”

“Up there, hanging in the garret, so they say,” answered Efím, pointing through the darkness to the roof of the serfs’ house.

Doútlof looked in the direction in which the cudgel pointed, and, though he could see nothing, he puckered his face, screwed up his eyes, and shook his head.

“The police-officer has come,” said Efím. “He’ll be taken down at once. Isn’t it horrible in the night, daddy? Nothing would make me go up at night, even if they ordered me to. If Egór Miháylovitch were to kill me outright I’d not go.⁠ ⁠…”

“The sin⁠ ⁠… oh, the sin of it!” Doútlof kept repeating, evidently for form’s sake, and not even thinking what he was saying. He was about to continue his way, but the voice of Egór Miháylovitch stopped him.

“Hi! watchman! Come here!” shouted Egór Miháylovitch from the porch of the office.

Efím answered.

“And what other peasant was standing with you just now?”

“Doútlof.”

“Ah! and you too, Semyón! Come along!”

Having drawn near, Doútlof, by the light of a lantern which the coachman was carrying, recognized Egór Miháylovitch and a short man with a cockade on his cap, dressed in a long uniform overcoat. This was the police-officer.

“Here, this old man will also come with us,” said Egór Miháylovitch on seeing him. The old man felt a bit uncomfortable, but it could not be helped.

“And you, Efím⁠—you’re a young lad! Run up into the garret where he’s hanged himself, and put the ladder straight for his Honour to mount.”

Efím, whom nothing could have induced to approach the serfs’ house, now ran towards it, clattering with his bark shoes as if they were clogs.

The police-officer struck a light and lit a pipe. He lived about a mile and a half off, and having been cruelly reprimanded for drunkenness by his superior, was in a zealous mood. Having arrived at ten o’clock in the evening, he wished to examine the body at once. Egór Miháylovitch asked Doútlof how he came to be there. On the way, Doútlof told the steward about the money he had found, and what the lady had done, and said he had come to ask Egór Miháylovitch’s permission.⁠ ⁠… To Doútlof’s horror, the steward demanded the envelope from him, and examined it. The police-officer even took the envelope in his hand, and asked curtly and dryly for the particulars.

“Oh dear, the money is lost!” thought Doútlof, and began justifying himself.

But the police-officer handed the money back to him.

“What a piece of luck for the clodhopper!” he said.

“It comes handy,” said Egór Miháylovitch. “He’s just been taking his nephew to be conscripted, and now he’ll buy him out.”

“Ah!” said the policeman, and went on in front.

“Will you buy him off⁠—Elijah, I mean?” asked Egór Miháylovitch.

“How am I to buy him off? Will there be money enough? And perhaps it’s not the right time.⁠ ⁠…”

“Well, you know best,” said the steward, and they both followed the police-officer. They approached the serfs’ house, where the smelly watchmen stood waiting with a lantern in the passage. Doútlof followed them. The watchmen looked guilty: perhaps because of the smell they were spreading; for they had done nothing wrong. All were silent.

“Where?” asked the police-officer.

“Here,” said Egór Miháylovitch in a whisper. “Efím,” he added, “you’re a young lad⁠ ⁠… go on in front with the lantern.”

Efím had already put a plank straight on the top of the stepladder, and seemed to have lost all fear. Taking two or three steps at a time, he was climbing up with a cheerful look, only turning round to light the way for the police-officer. The officer was followed by Egór Miháylovitch. When they had disappeared above, Doútlof, with one foot on the bottom step, sighed and stopped. Two or three minutes passed. The footsteps in the garret were no longer heard; evidently they had reached the body.

“Daddy, they want you,” Efím called through the opening.

Doútlof began going up. The light of the lantern showed only the upper part of the bodies of the police-officer and of Egór Miháylovitch beyond the rafters. Beyond them again someone else was standing, with his back turned towards them.

This was Polikéy.

Doútlof climbed over a rafter and stopped, crossing himself.

“Turn him round, lads!” said the police-officer.

No one stirred.

“Efím, you’re a young lad!⁠ ⁠…” said Egór Miháylovitch.

The young lad stepped across a rafter, turned Polikéy round, and stood beside him, looking with a most cheerful face now at Polikéy, now at the official, as a showman exhibiting an Albino or Julia Pastrána looks at the audience, ready to do anything they may wish.

“Turn him round again.”

Polikéy was turned round, his arms slightly swinging, and his feet dragging on the ground.

“Catch hold, and take him down.”

“Shall we chop the rope through, your Honour?” asked Egór Miháylovitch. “Hand us a chopper, lads!”

The watchmen and Doútlof had to be told twice before they would set to; but the young lad handled Polikéy as he would have handled a sheep’s carcass. At last the rope was chopped through, and the body taken down and covered up. The police-officer remarked that the doctor would come next day; and dismissed the people.

XV

Doútlof went homeward, still moving his lips. At first he had an uncanny feeling, but it passed as he drew nearer home, and joy gradually penetrated his heart. In the village he heard songs and drunken voices. Doútlof never drank, and this time too he went straight home.

It was late when he entered his hut. His old woman was asleep. His eldest son and his grandchildren were sleeping on