Later, as he listened to the foreman of the jury reading out the questions point by point, his entrails were turning over, his whole body was covered with a cold sweat, his left leg grew numb; he did not listen, he understood nothing, and suffered to the utmost because he could not sit or lie down while listening. Finally, when he and the other accused were allowed to sit down, the prosecutor of the court chamber got up and said something incomprehensible. At the same moment, as if out of nowhere, there appeared some policemen with bared swords and surrounded the accused. Avdeyev was ordered to get up and go.
Now he realized he had been found guilty and was placed under guard, but he was not scared nor surprised; there was such a revolution going on in his stomach that he could not care less about the guard.
“So we won’t be allowed back to the hotel?” he asked one of his companions. “And I have three rubles and some untouched tea left in my room.”
He spent the night at a private house; the whole night he felt disgusted by the fish and thought of his three rubles and the tea. Early in the morning, as the sky began to get blue, he was ordered to dress and go out. Two soldiers with bayonets took him to prison. Never before had the streets of the town seemed to him so long and endless. He did not walk on the sidewalk but in the middle of the street covered with the melting dirty snow. His insides were still fighting with the fish, his left leg was numb; he had forgotten his rubber boots either in the court or in the private house, and now his feet were cold.
Five days later all the accused were brought to court again to hear the sentence. Avdeyev learnt that he was sentenced to exile in Siberia, in the province of Tobolsk. And that did not scare nor surprise him. Somehow it seemed to him that the trial was not over yet, that the protraction still went on, and the real decision had not been made so far. He lived in prison and waited for the real decision every day.
Only six months later, when his wife and son Vassily came into prison to say good-bye to him, and when he hardly recognized his once well-fed and stout Elizabeth Trofimovna in this thin woman dressed as a beggar, and when he saw his son wearing a short, shabby jacket and light cotton trousers instead of his school uniform, only then did he realize that his fate was already decided, and that whatever new “decision” there might be, he would never be able to return to his past. And for the first time since the trial and imprisonment, he wiped the angry expression off his face and wept bitterly.
THE MAN WHO WANTED REVENGE
Fyodor Fyodorovich Sigaev—shortly after he’d caught his wife “in flagrante delicto”—was standing at the counter of the Shmuck and Co. gun store, choosing a handgun suitable for his needs. His face expressed anger, woe, sadness, and absolute resolution.
“I know what I must do,” he thought. “The foundations of my family life are shattered, virtue has been ground into the dirt, and vice rejoices. As an honest citizen and a decent man, I must have revenge. First, I will kill her and her lover, and then I will kill myself.”
He has not picked up any of the guns, and he has not yet killed anyone—not yet; but his imagination already pictures three bloodied corpses, the skulls blown to pieces, the splashing brains, the excitement of the crowd, the group of passersby watching the scene, and the autopsies to follow.
With all the joy of the offended innocent who achieves justice, he imagines the horror of the public, the terror of the insulting and annoying woman who’d cheated on him, and in his imagination he reads already the editorial article about the shattered foundations of his family.
The French shop assistant, who makes a comically odd figure with a small potbelly and a white vest, is placing various handguns before him on the counter, smiling respectfully and rubbing his hands.
“I must recommend to you, my dear sir, this wonderful handgun made by the company Smith and Wesson. This is the finest achievement of the handgun industry. It has three different switches, an extractor for the next cartridge; it can hit any target from six hundred paces, and it is very easy to aim. I would like to draw your attention, my dear sir, to the beautiful and very clean finish of this particular piece. This is the most fashionable handgun nowadays. Every day, we sell at least ten of them to robbers, wolves, and lovers. It has a very powerful and precise performance, and uncompromising quality. With one shot you can kill both your wife and her lover, and for suicides, I do not know of a better system.”
The shop assistant touched the triggers and breathed on the barrels, evincing an attitude of complete immersion in delight and joy. Looking at his face, so filled with admiration, one might imagine that he would gladly have put a bullet in the middle of his own forehead, if only he could be the owner of the handgun made by the wonderful Smith and Wesson company.
“And what is the price?” Mr. Sigaev asked.
“Forty-five rubles, sir.”
“Well, this is kind of expensive for me.”
“Then, my dear sir, I will show you a handgun made by another company, a bit cheaper. Let me see—we have a wonderful selection here, all different price ranges. For example, this handgun made by the Laforchet Company costs only eighteen rubles, but (the shop assistant wrinkled his face in disgust) this system is so old-fashioned for today. Only complete losers or psychopathic ladies buy this one. To kill your wife with a Laforchet is such bad taste. Good taste and good manners are only for the guns made by Smith and Wesson.”
“I am not going to shoot anyone or commit suicide,” Mr. Sigaev lied gloomily. “This is for my summer cottage, to scare off thieves.”
“We do not ask why our customers wish to purchase a handgun,” the shop assistant said humbly, lowering his glance. “If we were to ask why people bought guns, we would soon go out of business. But with the Laforchet gun you cannot even scare a crow, because when it shoots, it makes only a very quiet, subdued little pop. Instead, I will recommend to you another line of nice guns made by the Mortimer Company. Here it is, these are called duel guns.”
“Should I challenge him to a duel?” a quick thought appeared in Mr. Sigaev’s head. “But this is too much honor for him. People like him should be killed like animals, like the rats they are.”
The shop assistant turned to another counter with a few mincing steps, and talking and smiling nonstop, placed another pile of handguns before him. The Smith and Wesson guns looked the most appealing and respectable. Mr. Sigaev picked up one of the revolvers made by this company, looked at it dully, and was lost in his thoughts again.
In his imagination, he pictured how he would smash their skulls, how the blood would flow in a river on the area rugs and the parquetry tiles, and how the legs of his cheating wife would twitch as she died.
But this was not enough for his indignant soul. He was trying to find something more terrible.
“I’ve got it—I will kill only him and myself,” he decided. “And I will leave her to live. Let her be destroyed by her conscience and by the contempt of her neighbors. For a woman as nervous and sensitive as she is, this would be far more torture than a quick death.”
And then he imagined his funeral. Hurt feelings and all, he would lie in a coffin, with a humble smile on his lips, and like Niobe in the ancient Greek stories, she would be tortured by her conscience, and she would not know where to hide herself from the scornful glances of the indignant crowd.
“I can see sir, that you do like the guns by Smith and Wesson,” the shop assistant interrupted his dreams. “If you think that they are too expensive, I can come down by five rubles. But we also have guns made by other companies, a bit cheaper.”
The graceful French figure of the shop assistant turned, and he pulled out another dozen handguns in their boxes.