And it seemed again as if he were listening intently to his own voice.

As he said each word he would listen.

Then he would jump up and for a whole hour would curse continually.

He cursed picturesquely, shouting and rolling his blood-shot eyes.

"If you hang me--hang me!" and he would burst out cursing again.

And the sentinel, in the meantime white as chalk, weeping with pain and fright, would knock at the door with the b.u.t.t-end of the gun and cry helplessly:

"I'll fire! I'll kill you as sure as I live! Do you hear?"

But he dared not shoot. If there was no actual rebellion they never fired at those who had been condemned to death. And Tsiganok would gnash his teeth, would curse and spit. His brain thus racked on a monstrously sharp blade between life and death was falling to pieces like a lump of dry clay.

When they entered the cell at midnight to lead Tsiganok to the execution he began to bustle about and seemed to have recovered his spirits.

Again he had that sweet taste in his mouth, and his saliva collected abundantly, but his cheeks turned rosy and in his eyes began to glisten his former somewhat savage slyness. Dressing himself he asked the official:

"Who is going to do the hanging? A new man? I suppose he hasn't learned his job yet."

"You needn't worry about it," answered the official dryly.

"I can't help worrying, your Honor. I am going to be hanged, not you. At least don't be stingy with the government's soap on the noose."

"All right, all right! Keep quiet!"

"This man here has eaten all your soap," said Tsiganok, pointing to the warden. "See how his face shines."

"Silence!"

"Don't be stingy!"

And Tsiganok burst out laughing. But he began to feel that it was getting ever sweeter in his mouth, and suddenly his legs began to feel strangely numb. Still, on coming out into the yard, he managed to exclaim:

"The carriage of the Count of Bengal!"

CHAPTER V KISS-AND SAY NOTHING

The verdict concerning the five terrorists was p.r.o.nounced finally and confirmed upon the same day. The condemned were not told when the execution would take place, but they knew from the usual procedure that they would be hanged the same night, or, at the very latest, upon the following night. And when it was proposed to them that they meet their relatives upon the following Thursday they understood that the execution would take place on Friday at dawn.

Tanya Kovalchuk had no near relatives, and those whom she had were somewhere in the wilderness in Little Russia, and it was not likely that they even knew of the trial or of the coming execution. Musya and Werner, as unidentified people, were not supposed to have relatives, and only two, Sergey Golovin and Vasily Kashirin, were to meet their parents. Both of them looked upon that meeting with terror and anguish, yet they dared not refuse the old people the last word, the last kiss.

Sergey Golovin was particularly tortured by the thought of the coming meeting. He dearly loved his father and mother; he had seen them but a short while before, and now he was in a state of terror as to what would happen when they came to see him. The execution itself, in all its monstrous horror, in its brain-stunning madness, he could imagine more easily, and it seemed less terrible than these other few moments of meeting, brief and unsatisfactory, which seemed to reach beyond time, beyond life itself. How to look, what to think, what to say, his mind could not determine. The most simple and ordinary act, to take his father by the hand, to kiss him, and to say, "How do you do, father?"

seemed to him unspeakably horrible in its monstrous, inhuman, absurd deceitfulness.

After the sentence the condemned were not placed together in one cell, as Tanya Kovalchuk had supposed they would be, but each was put in solitary confinement, and all the morning, until eleven o'clock, when his parents came, Sergey Golovin paced his cell furiously, tugged at his beard, frowned pitiably and muttered inaudibly. Sometimes he would stop abruptly, would breathe deeply and then exhale like a man who has been too long under water. But he was so healthy, his young life was so strong within him, that even in the moments of most painful suffering his blood played under his skin, reddening his cheeks, and his blue eyes shone brightly and frankly.

But everything was far different from what he had antic.i.p.ated.

Nikolay Sergeyevich Golovin, Sergey's father, a retired colonel, was the first to enter the room where the meeting took place. He was all white--his face, his beard, his hair, and his hands--as if he were a snow statue attired in man's clothes. He had on the same old but well-cleaned coat, smelling of benzine, with new shoulder-straps crosswise, that he had always worn, and he entered firmly, with an air of stateliness, with strong and steady steps. He stretched out his white, thin hand and said loudly:

"How do you do, Sergey?"

Behind him Sergey's mother entered with short steps, smiling strangely.

But she also pressed his hands and repeated loudly:

"How do you do, Seryozhenka?"

She kissed him on the lips and sat down silently. She did not rush over to him; she did not burst into tears; she did not break into a sob; she did not do any of the terrible things which Sergey had feared. She just kissed him and silently sat down. And with her trembling hands she even adjusted her black silk dress.

Sergey did not know that the colonel, having locked himself all the previous night in his little study, had deliberated upon this ritual with all his power. "We must not aggravate, but ease the last moments of our son," resolved the colonel firmly, and he carefully weighed every possible phase of the conversation, every act and movement that might take place on the following day. But somehow he became confused, forgetting what he had prepared, and he wept bitterly in the corner of the oilcloth-covered couch. In the morning he explained to his wife how she should behave at the meeting.

"The main thing is, kiss--and say nothing!" he taught her. "Later you may speak--after a while--but when you kiss him, be silent. Don't speak right after the kiss, do you understand? Or you will say what you should not say."

"I understand, Nikolay Sergeyevich," answered the mother, weeping.

"And you must not weep. For G.o.d's sake, do not weep! You will kill him if you weep, old woman!"

"Why do you weep?"

"With women one cannot help weeping. But you must not weep, do you hear?"

"Very well, Nikolay Sergeyevich."

Riding in the drozhky, he had intended to school her in the instructions again, but he forgot. And so they rode in silence, bent, both gray and old, and they were lost in thought, while the city was gay and noisy. It was Shrovetide, and the streets were crowded.

They sat down. Then the colonel stood up, a.s.sumed a studied pose, placing his right hand upon the border of his coat. Sergey sat for an instant, looked closely upon the wrinkled face of his mother and then jumped up.

"Be seated, Seryozhenka," begged the mother.

"Sit down, Sergey," repeated the father.

They became silent. The mother smiled.

"How we have pet.i.tioned for you, Seryozhenka! Father--"

"You should not have done that, mother----"

The colonel spoke firmly:

"We had to do it, Sergey, so that you should not think your parents had forsaken you."

They became silent again. It was terrible for them to utter even a word, as though each word in the language had lost its individual meaning and meant but one thing--Death. Sergey looked at his father's coat, which smelt of benzine, and thought: "They have no servant now, consequently he must have cleaned it himself. How is it that I never before noticed when he cleaned his coat? I suppose he does it in the morning." Suddenly he asked:

"And how is sister? Is she well?" "Ninochka does not know anything," the mother answered hastily.