did he come from?”
“He was passing by.”
“Well, such is life! So it is, dear brethren, and now I must go on my way. I’m all confused. I tell you, I’m more frightened of the dead than of anything else. And it comes to me that when he was living, no one paid any attention to him, and now that he is dead and delivered over to corruption, we tremble before him as though he were a great conqueror or a high official of the Church.… Such is life!… Tell me, was he murdered?”
“Christ knows! Maybe he was murdered, maybe he just died.”
“Yes, yes. So it is! And who knows, dear brethren, even now his soul may be tasting the delights of Paradise.”
“No, his soul is still clinging close to his body,” the young man said. “It doesn’t leave the body for three days.”
“Hm, yes! How cold it is, eh? My teeth are chattering.… How do I go? Straight ahead, eh?”
“Till you reach the village, and then you turn to the right, by the river.”
“By the river, eh? Why am I standing here? I must get going. Good-by, dear brethren!”
The man in the cassock took four or five steps along the path, and then stood still.
“I forgot to give a kopeck for the funeral,” he said. “You are good religious people. May I—is it right for me to leave the money?”
“You should know best, since you go about from one monastery to another. Suppose he died a natural death— then it will go for the good of his soul. If he didn’t, then it’s a sin.”
“That’s true. Maybe he killed himself, and so I had better keep the money. Oh, so much evil in the world! Even if you gave me a thousand rubles, I wouldn’t stay here.… Farewell, brothers!”
Slowly the man in the cassock moved away, and again he stood still.
“I don’t know what to do,” he muttered. “It’s terrible to be staying here by the fire and waiting for daybreak, and it’s terrible to be going along the road. I’ll be haunted by him—he’ll come out of the shadows! God is punishing me! I’ve walked for four hundred miles, and nothing ever happened to me, and now I am close to home, and there’s all this misery. I can’t go on.…”
“You’re right. It’s terrible.”
“I’m not afraid of wolves. I’m not afraid of robbers, or the dark, but I’m afraid of the dead. I’m terrified, and that’s the truth! Dear good religious brethren, I beg you on my knees to see me to the village.”
“We have to stay with the body.”
“Dear brethren, no one will ever know. Truly, no one will see you coming with me. God will reward you a hundredfold. You with a beard—come with me! Do me that kindness! Why doesn’t he talk?”
“He hasn’t got much sense,” the young man said.
“Come with me, friend. I’ll give you five kopecks!”
“I might, for five kopecks,” the young man said, scratching the back of his head. “It’s against orders, though. If Syoma, the poor fool, will stay here, then I’ll come. Syoma, do you mind staying here alone?”
“I don’t mind,” the fool said.
“All right. Let’s go.”
So the young man rose and went with the man wearing a cassock, and soon the sound of their steps and the talk died away into the night.
Syoma closed his eyes and fell into a gentle sleep. The fire gradually went out, and soon the dead body was lost among great shadows.
S
“SERGEANT Prishibeyev! You are charged with using insulting language and committing assault and battery upon the persons of Police Officer Zhigin, the village elder Alyapov, Patrolman Yefimov, the witnesses Ivanov and Gavrilov, and six other villagers on the third of September. The three first-named were insulted by you during the performance of their official duties. Do you plead guilty?”
Prishibeyev, a shriveled-up non-commissioned officer, whose face was all bristles, came to attention and replied in a hoarse, choked-up voice, forming each word as though he were on the parade ground:
“Your Honor, Mr. Justice of the Peace!… In accordance with the articles of the law it stands to reason that testimony must be taken mutually and severally with regard to all the circumstances of any and every case. No, it’s not me that’s guilty—it’s the rest of them. I may say the whole business started with that dead body—may God give him rest! On the third day of the aforesaid month I was quietly and respectably taking a promenade with my wife Anfisa. Then what do I observe but a mob of people standing there on the shore. I ask myself: Do they possess a legal right of assembly? I ask myself: What on earth are they up to? Is it permissible for people to crowd around like cattle? So I shout at them: ‘Break it up there, all of you!’ Then I barge into them and send them off packing to their homes, and I order the patrolman to give them a taste of the stick!”
“Listen to me. You are not the village elder, nor the patrolman—is it your business to break up crowds?”
“It’s not his business—no, it isn’t!” people shouted from all over the room. “No one can live in the same world with him, Your Honor! Fifteen years we’ve had to endure him! Ever since he came back from the Army, we’ve felt like running away from the village. He only torments us—that’s all he ever does!”
“Just so, Your Honor,” says the village elder. “The whole village—everyone—complains about him. No one can breathe while he’s around. Whenever we march in procession with the icons, or there’s a wedding, or any kind of occasion, he’s always there shouting, making noises, and ordering everyone about. He pulls the children’s ears, and
