"Is it worth while leading a good, moral life?" he thought, as he looked at the beaming, healthy, joyful and good-natured presiding justice, who, spreading his elbows, stroked his long, gray whiskers; "he is always contented and cheerful, while I am suffering."
The secretary entered and handed the presiding justice a document.
"Thank you," he said, and lighted a cigarette. "Which case shall be taken up first?"
"The poison case, I think," the secretary answered, with feigned indifference.
"Very well; so let it be the poison case," said the justice, considering that that case could be disposed of by four o'clock and make it possible for him to keep the appointment. "Has Matvei Nikitich arrived?"
"Not yet."
"Is Breae here?"
"Yes," answered the secretary.
"Then tell him that we shall try the poisoning case."
Breae was an assistant prosecuting attorney and was assigned to this term of the court.
The secretary met Breae in the corridor. With uplifted shoulders, his robe unbuttoned, and portfolio under his arm, he almost ran, his heels clattering on the floor, and his disengaged hand outstretched in the direction in which he was going.
"Michael Petrovich desires to know if you are ready," said the secretary.
"Certainly; I am always ready," said the assistant prosecutor; "which is the first case?"
"The poisoning case."
"Very well," said the assistant prosecutor, but he did not consider it well at all—he had not slept all night. A send-off had been given to a departing friend, and he drank and played till two in the morning, so that he was entirely unfamiliar with this case, and now hastened to glance over the indictment. The secretary had purposely suggested the case, knowing that the prosecutor had not read it. The secretary was a man of liberal, even radical, ideas. Breae was conservative, and the secretary disliked him, and envied his position.
"And what about the Skoptzy?"[A]
"I have already said that I cannot prosecute them in the absence of witnesses," said the assistant prosecutor, "and I will so declare to the court."
"But you don't need——"
"I cannot," said the assistant prosecutor, and waving his hand, ran to his office.
He was postponing the case against the Skoptzy, although the absent witness was an entirely unnecessary one. The real reason of the postponement was that the prosecutor feared that their trial before an intelligent jury might end in their acquittal. By an understanding with the presiding justice their case was to be transferred to the session of the District Court, where the preponderance of peasants on the jury would insure their conviction.
The commotion in the corridor increased. The greatest crowd was before the Civil Court, where the case of which the portly gentleman was telling the jurymen was being tried. During a recess the same old lady from whom the ingenious attorney managed to win her property in favor of his shrewd client, came out of the court-room. That he was not entitled to the property was known to the judges as well as to the claimant and his attorney, but the mode of their procedure was such that it was impossible to dismiss their claim. The old lady was stout, in smart attire, and with large flowers on her hat. As she passed into the corridor she stopped, and turning to her lawyer, kept repeating:
"How can it be? Great heavens! I don't understand it!"
The lawyer did not listen to her, but looked at the flowers on her hat, making mental calculations.
Behind the old lady, beaming in his wide-open vest, and with a self-sufficient smile on his face, came that same famous lawyer who so managed the case that the lady with the large flowers lost all her property, while his shrewd client, who paid him ten thousand rubles, received over a hundred thousand. All eyes were directed toward him. He was conscious of it and seemed to say by his demeanor:
"Never mind your expressions of devotion," and brushed past the crowd.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] A sect of eunuchs.
CHAPTER VII.
Finally Matvei Nikitich arrived, and the usher, a long-necked and lean man, with a sideling gait and protruding lower lip, entered the jury-room.
The usher was an honest man, with a university education, but he could not hold any employment on account of his tippling habit. A countess, his wife's patroness, had obtained him his present position three months ago; he still retained it, and was exceedingly glad.
"Are you all here, gentlemen?" he asked, putting on his pince-nez and looking through it.
"I think so," said the cheerful merchant.
"Let us see," said the usher, and drawing a sheet of paper from his pocket, began to call the names of the jury, looking at those that responded to their names now through his pince-nez, now over it.
"Counsilor of State E. M. Nikiforoff."
"Here," said the portly gentleman, who was familiar with all the litigations.
"Retired Colonel Ivan Semionovich Ivanoff."
"Present," answered a lank man in the uniform of a retired officer.
"Merchant of the second guild, Peter Baklashoff."
"Here," said the good-natured merchant, smiling from ear to ear. "We are ready."
"Lieutenant of the Guards, Prince Dmitri Nekhludoff."
"Here," answered Nekhludoff.
The usher, looking politely and pleasantly through his pince-nez, bowed, thereby distinguishing him from the rest, as it were.
"Captain Uri Dmitrievich Danchenko; merchant Gregory Ephimovich Kouleshoff," etc., etc., etc.
There were but two missing from the panel.
"You will now, gentlemen, walk into the court," said the usher, pointing to the door with a polite sweep of the hand.
They all rose from their seats, and passing each other through the door, made their way through the corridor to the court-room.
The court was held in a large, oblong room. At one end was a platform, reached by three steps. In the middle of the platform stood a table, covered with green cloth, which was fringed with a dark-green lace. Behind the table stood three arm-chairs with high, carved backs. In an image-case suspended in the right corner was a representation of Christ with a crown of thorns, and beneath it a reading-desk, and on the same side stood the prosecutor's desk. To the left, opposite this desk, was the secretary's table, and dividing these from the seats reserved for spectators was a carved railing, along which stood the prisoners' bench, as yet unoccupied.
On an elevation to the right were two rows of chairs, also with high backs, reserved for the jury; below these were tables for the attorneys. All this was in the front part of the court-room, which was divided in two by a railing. In the rear part of the room benches in lines extended to the wall. In the front row sat four women, either servants or factory employees, and two men, also workmen, who were evidently awed by the grandeur of the ornamentations, and were timidly whispering to each other.
Soon after the jurymen came the usher, who, walking sidewise to the middle of the room, shouted, as if he meant to frighten those present:
"The court is coming!"
Everybody stood up, and the judges ascended the platform. First came the presiding judge with his muscles and beautiful whiskers. Then came the gold-spectacled, gloomy member of the court—now even more gloomy, for before the opening of the session he met his brother-in-law, a candidate for a judicial office, who told him that he had seen his sister, and that she declared that there would be no dinner at home this day.
"So that, it seems, we will have to dine at an inn," said the brother-in-law, laughing.
"What is there droll about it?" said the gloomy member of the court, and sank into a still deeper gloom.