"I did.''
"Everybody heard you say them very words in front of the common people: 'Such cases ain't within the jurisdiction of the justice of the peace.' Everybody heard you say them words. I got hot under the collar, Your Honor. Honest, it took away my breath. 'Repeat,' says I, 'repeat, you blankety blank, what you just said.' And he did. 'How can you say them words,' says I, 'about His Honor the justice of the peace? You, a police officer, and you're against the government! What! Do you know,' says I, 'that if he takes it into his head, His Honor the justice of the peace can ship you off to the provincial office of the gendarmerie on account of your unreliable conduct? Do you know,' says I, 'where His Honor the justice of the peace can send you for such political words?' And the elder, he says: 'The justice of the peace can't do nothing,' he says, 'beyond his limits. Only minor cases comes within his jurisdiction.' Them's his exact words, everybody heard him. 'How dare you belittle the authorities?' says I. 'Don't you get gay with me,' says I, 'or you'll come to grief, brother.' When I was serving in Warsaw and when I was doorman at the junior high school for boys of good family, if I heard something as shouldn't be said, I'd look up and do^ the street for a gendarme. 'Come here, officer,' I'd say, and I'd make a report of the whole affair to him. But here in the village, to whom can you report? This made me sore. It got under my skin to see folks indulge in license and insubordination, and I gave the elder a crack. Of course, not much of a one, just easy like, so he'd know better than to say such words about Your Honor. The constable stuck up for the elder. So, natu- rally, I went for the constable, too. And then there was a rumpus. I forgot myself, Your Honor. But how'll you get along if you don't punch 'em sometimes? If you don't thrash a fool, you take a sin on your soul. And all the more if he deserves it, if there's a breach of the peace."
"Allow me, but there are proper authorities to keep order. There is the constable, the elder, the policeman.''
"The constable can't keep an eye on everything, and besides he don't understand things like I do. . . ."
"But get it into your head: this is none of your busi- ness!"
"How's that, sir? What do you mean—none of my business? That's queer, sir. People carry on disgrace- ful!y, and it's none of my business! Should I pat 'em on the back for it? Here they kick because I don't let 'em sing. What's the good of singing? Instead of doing something useful, they sing. And now they've got into the way of sitting up evenings and burning lights. They should go to bed, and instead they gab and cackle. I've got it all wrote down!"
"What have you written down?"
"About them as sit up and bums lights."
Prishibeyev takes a greasy sheet of paper out of his pocket, puts on his spectacles, and reads:
"Peasants what burn lights: Ivan Prokhorov, Savva Mikiforov, Pyotr Petrov, Shustrova, soldier's widow, lives in sin with Semyon Kislov. Ignat Sverchok prac- tices witchcraft and his wife Mavra is a witch: she milks other folks' cows at night."
"That will do," says the judge, and starts to question the witnesses.
Sergeant Prishibeyev shoves his spectacles up on his forehead and stares in astonishment at the judge, who appears not to side with him. His protruding eyes glit- ter, his nose turns bright red. He gazes at the justice of the peace, and at the witnesses, and cannot grasp why the judge is so agitated or why now a murmur, now subdued laughter is heard from all the corners of the courtroom. The sentence, too, is incomprehensible to him: a month in jail!
"What for?" says he, throwing up his hands in be- wilderment. "By what law?"
And it is clear to him that the world has changed and that it is utterly impossible to go on living. He falls prey to gloomy, despondent thoughts. But when he leaves the courtroom and catches sight of a crowd of peasants milling about and talking, a habit that he can no longer control makes him come to attention and shout in a hoarse, angry voice:
"Break it up, folks! Move along! Go on home!"
1885
The Culprit
A
PUNY little peasant, exceedingly skinny, wearing patched trousers and a shirt made of ticking, stands before the investigating magistrate. His hairy, pockmarked face, and his eyes, scarcely visible under thick, overhanging brows, have an expression of grim sullenness. The mop of tangled hair that has not known the touch of a comb for a long time gives him a spider- ish air that makes him look even grimmer. He is bare- foot.
"Denis Grigoryev!" the magistrate begins. "Step nearer and answer my questions. On the morning of the seventh of this present month of July, the railway watchman, Ivan Semyonovich Akinfov, making his rounds, found you, near the hundred-and-forty-first milepost, unscrewing the nut of one of the bolts by which the rails are fastened to the sleepers. Here is the nut! . . . With the said nut he detained you. Is this true?"
"Wot?"
"Did all this happen as stated by Akinfov?"
"It did, sure."
"Very well; now, for what purpose were you un- screwing the nut?"
"Wot?" "Stop saying 'wot' and answer the question: for what purpose were you unscrewing the nut?"
"If I didn't need it, I wouldn't've unscrewed it," croaks Denis, with a sidelong glance at the ceiling.
"What did you want that nut for?"
'The nut? We make sinkers of these nuts."
"Who are 'we'?"
'We, folks. . . . The Klimovo peasants, that is."
"Listen, brother; don't play the fool with me, but talk sense. There's no use lying to me about sinkers."
"I never lied in my life, and here I'm lying . . ." mutters Denis, blinking. "But can you do without a sinker, Your Honor? If you put live bait or worms on a hook, would it go to the bottom without a sinker? . . . So I'm lying," sneers Denis. "What the devil is the good of live bait if it floats on the surface? The perch and the pike and the eel-pout will bite only if your line touches bottom, and if your bait floats on the surface, it's only a bullhead will take it, and that only sometimes, and there ain't no bullhead in our river . • . That fish likes plenty of room."
"What are you telling me about bullhead for?"
'Wot? Why, you asked me yourself! Up our way the gentry catch fish that way, too. Even a little kid wouldn't try to catch fish without a sinker. Of course, somebody with no sense might go fishing without a sinker. No rules for fools."
"So you say you unscrewed this nut to make a sinker of it?"
"What else for? Not to play knucklebones with!"
"But you might have taken a bit of lead or a bullet for a smker . . . a nail . . . "
"You don't pick up lead on the road, you have to pay for it, and a nail's no good. You can't find nothing better than a nut . . . It's heavy, and it's got a hole."
"He keeps playing the fool! As though he'd been born yesterday or dropped out of the sky! Don't you under- stand, you blockhead, what this unscrewing leads to? If the watchman hadn't been on the lookout, the train might have been derailed, people would have been killed—you would have killed people."
"God forbid, Your Honor! Kill people? Are we un- baptized, or criminals? Glory be to God, sir, we've lived our lives without dreaming of such a thing, much less killing anybody . • . Save us, Queen of Heaven, have mercy on us! What are you saying, sir?"
"And how do you suppose train wrecks happen? Un- screw two or three nuts, and you have a wreck!"