“Know them?  Of course I do.  The Aksionovs are rich, though their father is in Siberia:  a sinner like ourselves, it seems!  As for you, Gran’dad, how did you come here?”

Aksionov did not like to speak of his misfortune.  He only sighed, and said, “For my sins I have been in prison these twenty-six years.”

“What sins?” asked Makar Semyonich.

But Aksionov only said, “Well, well—­I must have deserved it!” He would have said no more, but his companions told the newcomers how Aksionov came to be in Siberia; how some one had killed a merchant, and had put the knife among Aksionov’s things, and Aksionov had been unjustly condemned.

When Makar Semyonich heard this, he looked at Aksionov, slapped his own knee, and exclaimed, “Well, this is wonderful!  Really wonderful!  But how old you’ve grown, Gran’dad!”

The others asked him why he was so surprised, and where he had seen Aksionov before; but Makar Semyonich did not reply.  He only said:  “It’s wonderful that we should meet here, lads!”

These words made Aksionov wonder whether this man knew who had killed the merchant; so he said, “Perhaps, Semyonich, you have heard of that affair, or maybe you’ve seen me before?”

“How could I help hearing?  The world’s full of rumours.  But it’s a long time ago, and I’ve forgotten what I heard.”

“Perhaps you heard who killed the merchant?” asked Aksionov.

Makar Semyonich laughed, and replied:  “It must have been him in whose bag the knife was found!  If some one else hid the knife there, ’He’s not a thief till he’s caught,’ as the saying is.  How could any one put a knife into your bag while it was under your head?  It would surely have woke you up.”

When Aksionov heard these words, he felt sure this was the man who had killed the merchant.  He rose and went away.  All that night Aksionov lay awake.  He felt terribly unhappy, and all sorts of images rose in his mind.  There was the image of his wife as she was when he parted from her to go to the fair.  He saw her as if she were present; her face and her eyes rose before him; he heard her speak and laugh.  Then he saw his children, quite little, as they:  were at that time:  one with a little cloak on, another at his mother’s breast.  And then he remembered himself as he used to be-young and merry.  He remembered how he sat playing the guitar in the porch of the inn where he was arrested, and how free from care he had been.  He saw, in his mind, the place where he was flogged, the executioner, and the people standing around; the chains, the convicts, all the twenty-six years of his prison life, and his premature old age.  The thought of it all made him so wretched that he was ready to kill himself.

“And it’s all that villain’s doing!” thought Aksionov.  And his anger was so great against Makar Semyonich that he longed for vengeance, even if he himself should perish for it.  He kept repeating prayers all night, but could get no peace.  During the day he did not go near Makar Semyonich, nor even look at him.