The Complete Works of Leo Tolstoy (25+ Works with active table of contents) (513 page)

The horse was jogging along at a weary trot, beating the uneven, dusty road monotonously with its hoofs, the isvostchik kept falling into a doze, Nekhludoff sat without thinking of anything.

At the bottom of a street, in front of a large house, a group of people had collected, and a convoy soldier stood by.

"What has happened?" Nekhludoff asked of a porter.

"Something the matter with a convict."

Nekhludoff got down and came up to the group. On the rough stones, where the pavement slanted down to the gutter, lay a broadly-built, red-bearded, elderly convict, with his head lower than his feet, and very red in the face. He had a grey cloak and grey trousers on, and lay on his back with the palms of his freckled hands downwards, and at long intervals his broad, high chest heaved, and he groaned, while his bloodshot eyes were fixed on the sky. By him stood a cross-looking policeman, a pedlar, a postman, a clerk, an old woman with a parasol, and a short-haired boy with an empty basket.

"They are weak. Having been locked up in prison they've got weak, and then they lead them through the most broiling heat," said the clerk, addressing Nekhludoff, who had just come up.

"He'll die, most likely," said the woman with the parasol, in a doleful tone.

"His shirt should be untied," said the postman.

The policeman began, with his thick, trembling fingers, clumsily to untie the tapes that fastened the shirt round the red, sinewy neck. He was evidently excited and confused, but still thought it necessary to address the crowd.

"What have you collected here for? It is hot enough without your keeping the wind off."

"They should have been examined by a doctor, and the weak ones left behind," said the clerk, showing off his knowledge of the law.

The policeman, having undone the tapes of the shirt, rose and looked round.

"Move on, I tell you. It is not your business, is it? What's there to stare at?" he said, and turned to Nekhludoff for sympathy, but not finding any in his face he turned to the convoy soldier.

But the soldier stood aside, examining the trodden-down heel of his boot, and was quite indifferent to the policeman's perplexity.

"Those whose business it is don't care. Is it right to do men to death like this? A convict is a convict, but still he is a man," different voices were heard saying in the crowd.

"Put his head up higher, and give him some water," said Nekhludoff.

"Water has been sent for," said the policeman, and taking the prisoner under the arms he with difficulty pulled his body a little higher up.

"What's this gathering here?" said a decided, authoritative voice, and a police officer, with a wonderfully clean, shiny blouse, and still more shiny top-boots, came up to the assembled crowd.

"Move on. No standing about here," he shouted to the crowd, before he knew what had attracted it.

When he came near and saw the dying convict, he made a sign of approval with his head, just as if he had quite expected it, and, turning to the policeman, said, "How is this?"

The policeman said that, as a gang of prisoners was passing, one of the convicts had fallen down, and the convoy officer had ordered him to be left behind.

"Well, that's all right. He must be taken to the police station. Call an isvostchik."

"A porter has gone for one," said the policeman, with his fingers raised to his cap.

The shopman began something about the heat.

"Is it your business, eh? Move on," said the police officer, and looked so severely at him that the clerk was silenced.

"He ought to have a little water," said Nekhludoff. The police officer looked severely at Nekhludoff also, but said nothing. When the porter brought a mug full of water, he told the policeman to offer some to the convict. The policeman raised the drooping head, and tried to pour a little water down the mouth; but the prisoner could not swallow it, and it ran down his beard, wetting his jacket and his coarse, dirty linen shirt.

"Pour it on his head," ordered the officer; and the policeman took off the pancake-shaped cap and poured the water over the red curls and bald part of the prisoner's head. His eyes opened wide as if in fear, but his position remained unchanged.

Streams of dirt trickled down his dusty face, but the mouth continued to gasp in the same regular way, and his whole body shook.

"And what's this? Take this one," said the police officer, pointing to Nekhludoff's isvostchik. "You, there, drive up."

"I am engaged," said the isvostchik, dismally, and without looking up.

"It is my isvostchik; but take him. I will pay you," said Nekhludoff, turning to the isvostchik.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" shouted the officer. "Catch hold."

The policeman, the porter, and the convoy soldier lifted the dying man and carried him to the trap, and put him on the seat. But he could not sit up; his head fell back, and the whole of his body glided off the seat.

"Make him lie down," ordered the officer.

"It's all right, your honour; I'll manage him like this," said the policeman, sitting down by the dying man, and clasping his strong, right arm round the body under the arms. The convoy soldier lifted the stockingless feet, in prison shoes, and put them into the trap.

The police officer looked around, and noticing the pancake-shaped hat of the convict lifted it up and put it on the wet, drooping head.

"Go on," he ordered.

The isvostchik looked angrily round, shook his head, and, accompanied by the convoy soldier, drove back to the police station. The policeman, sitting beside the convict, kept dragging up the body that was continually sliding down from the seat, while the head swung from side to side.

The convoy soldier, who was walking by the side of the trap, kept putting the legs in their place. Nekhludoff followed the trap.

CHAPTER XXXVII

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SPILLED LIKE WATER ON THE GROUND.

The trap passed the fireman who stood sentinel at the entrance, [the headquarters of the fire brigade and the police stations are generally together in Moscow] drove into the yard of the police station, and stopped at one of the doors. In the yard several firemen with their sleeves tucked up were washing some kind of cart and talking loudly. When the trap stopped, several policemen surrounded it, and taking the lifeless body of the convict under the arms, took him out of the trap, which creaked under him. The policeman who had brought the body got down, shook his numbed arm, took off his cap, and crossed himself. The body was carried through the door and up the stairs. Nekhludoff followed. In the small, dirty room where the body was taken there stood four beds. On two of them sat a couple of sick men in dressing-gowns, one with a crooked mouth, whose neck was bandaged, the other one in consumption. Two of the beds were empty; the convict was laid on one of them. A little man, wish glistening eyes and continually moving brows, with only his underclothes and stockings on, came up with quick, soft steps, looked at the convict and then at Nekhludoff, and burst into loud laughter. This was a madman who was being kept in the police hospital.

"They wish to frighten me, but no, they won't succeed," he said.

The policemen who carried the corpse were followed by a police officer and a medical assistant. The medical assistant came up to the body and touched the freckled hand, already growing cold, which, though still soft, was deadly pale. He held it for a moment, and then let it go. It fell lifelessly on the stomach of the dead man.

"He's ready," said the medical assistant, but, evidently to be quite in order, he undid the wet, brown shirt, and tossing back the curls from his ear, put it to the yellowish, broad, immovable chest of the convict. All were silent. The medical assistant raised himself again, shook his head, and touched with his fingers first one and then the other lid over the open, fixed blue eyes.

"I'm not frightened, I'm not frightened." The madman kept repeating these words, and spitting in the direction of the medical assistant.

"Well?" asked the police officer.

"Well! He must he put into the mortuary."

"Are you sure? Mind," said the police officer.

"It's time I should know," said the medical assistant, drawing the shirt over the body's chest. "However, I will send for Mathew Ivanovitch. Let him have a look. Petrov, call him," and the medical assistant stepped away from the body.

"Take him to the mortuary," said the police officer. "And then you must come into the office and sign," he added to the convoy soldier, who had not left the convict for a moment.

"Yes, sir," said the soldier.

The policemen lifted the body and carried it down again. Nekhludoff wished to follow, but the madman kept him back.

"You are not in the plot! Well, then, give me a cigarette," he said. Nekhludoff got out his cigarette case and gave him one.

The madman, quickly moving his brows all the time, began relating how they tormented him by thought suggestion.

"Why, they are all against me, and torment and torture me through their mediums."

"I beg your pardon," said Nekhludoff, and without listening any further he left the room and went out into the yard, wishing to know where the body would be put.

The policemen with their burden had already crossed the yard, and were coming to the door of a cellar. Nekhludoff wished to go up to them, but the police officer stopped him.

"What do you want?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing? Then go away."

Nekhludoff obeyed, and went back to his isvostchik, who was dozing. He awoke him, and they drove back towards the railway station.

They had not made a hundred steps when they met a cart accompanied by a convoy soldier with a gun. On the cart lay another convict, who was already dead. The convict lay on his back in the cart, his shaved head, from which the pancake-shaped cap had slid over the black-bearded face down to the nose, shaking and thumping at every jolt. The driver, in his heavy boots, walked by the side of the cart, holding the reins; a policeman followed on foot. Nekhludoff touched his isvostchik's shoulder.

"Just look what they are doing," said the isvostchik, stopping his horse.

Nekhludoff got down and, following the cart, again passed the sentinel and entered the gate of the police station. By this time the firemen had finished washing the cart, and a tall, bony man, the chief of the fire brigade, with a coloured band round his cap, stood in their place, and, with his hands in his pockets, was severely looking at a fat-necked, well-fed, bay stallion that was being led up and down before him by a fireman. The stallion was lame on one of his fore feet, and the chief of the firemen was angrily saying something to a veterinary who stood by.

The police officer was also present. When he saw the cart he went up to the convoy soldier.

"Where did you bring him from?" he asked, shaking his head disapprovingly.

"From the Gorbatovskaya," answered the policeman.

"A prisoner?" asked the chief of the fire brigade.

"Yes. It's the second to-day."

"Well, I must say they've got some queer arrangements. Though of course it's a broiling day," said the chief of the fire brigade; then, turning to the fireman who was leading the lame stallion, he shouted: "Put him into the corner stall. And as to you, you hound, I'll teach you how to cripple horses which are worth more than you are, you scoundrel."

The dead man was taken from the cart by the policemen just in the same way as the first had been, and carried upstairs into the hospital. Nekhludoff followed them as if he were hypnotised.

"What do you want?" asked one of the policemen. But Nekhludoff did not answer, and followed where the body was being carried. The madman, sitting on a bed, was smoking greedily the cigarette Nekhludoff had given him.

"Ah, you've come back," he said, and laughed. When he saw the body he made a face, and said, "Again! I am sick of it. I am not a boy, am I, eh?" and he turned to Nekhludoff with a questioning smile.

Nekhludoff was looking at the dead man, whose face, which had been hidden by his cap, was now visible. This convict was as handsome in face and body as the other was hideous. He was a man in the full bloom of life. Notwithstanding that he was disfigured by the half of his head being shaved, the straight, rather low forehead, raised a bit over the black, lifeless eyes, was very fine, and so was the nose above the thin, black moustaches. There was a smile on the lips that were already growing blue, a small beard outlined the lower part of the face, and on the shaved side of the head a firm, well-shaped car was visible.

One could see what possibilities of a higher life had been destroyed in this man. The fine bones of his hands and shackled feet, the strong muscles of all his well-proportioned limbs, showed what a beautiful, strong, agile human animal this had been. As an animal merely he had been a far more perfect one of his kind than the bay stallion, about the laming of which the fireman was so angry.