Iron it is. For the last six years I have worn
fetters on them.
And what was that for?
Because I was striving for your welfare, I wanted
to liberate you, the coarse, uneducated people; I
rebelled against your oppressors, I mutinied....
Well, and so they put me in prison.
They put you in prison? It served you right for
rebelling!
Two Years Later
Hearken, Piotra!... Dost remember one of those
white-handed lazy men was talking to thee the summer
before last?
I remember.... What of it?
They’re going to hang him to-day, I hear; that’s
the order which has been issued.
Has he kept on rebelling?
He has.
Yes.... Well, see here, brother Mitry: can’t
we get hold of a bit of that rope with which they
are going to hang him? Folks say that that brings
the greatest good luck to a house.
Thou’rt right about that. We must try,
brother Piotra.
April, 1878.
The last days of August.... Autumn had already
come.
The sun had set. A sudden, violent rain, without
thunder and without lightning, had just swooped down
upon our broad plain.
The garden in front of the house burned and smoked,
all flooded with the heat of sunset and the deluge
of rain.
She was sitting at a table in the drawing-room and
staring with stubborn thoughtfulness into the garden,
through the half-open door.
I knew what was going on then in her soul. I
knew that after a brief though anguished conflict,
she would that same instant yield to the feeling which
she could no longer control.
Suddenly she rose, walked out briskly into the garden
and disappeared.
One hour struck ... then another; she did not return.
Then I rose, and emerging from the house, I bent my
steps to the alley down which—I had no
doubt as to that—she had gone.
Everything had grown dark round about; night had already
descended. But on the damp sand of the path,
gleaming scarlet amid the encircling gloom, a rounded
object was visible.
