Short Fiction - Leo Tolstoy (best books to read non fiction .TXT) 📗

quickly. She only considered her own feelings, and did not care for the convicts and their families.

On Tuesday the village constable called on Natalia Ivanovna. He was a friend, and she offered him vodka and preserved mushrooms of her own making. The constable, after eating a little, told her that the execution was not to take place the next day.

“Why?”

“A very strange thing has happened. There is no hangman to be found. They had one in Moscow, my son told me, but he has been reading the Gospels a good deal and says: ‘I will not commit a murder.’ He had himself been sentenced to hard labour for having committed a murder, and now he objects to hang when the law orders him. He was threatened with flogging. ‘You may flog me,’ he said, ‘but I won’t do it.’ ”

Natalia Ivanovna grew red and hot at the thought which suddenly came into her head.

“Could not the death sentence be commuted now?”

“How so, since the judges have passed it? The Czar alone has the right of amnesty.”

“But how would he know?”

“They have the right of appealing to him.”

“But it is on my account they are to die,” said that stupid woman, Natalia Ivanovna. “And I forgive them.”

The constable laughed. “Well⁠—send a petition to the Czar.”

“May I do it?”

“Of course you may.”

“But is it not too late?”

“Send it by telegram.”

“To the Czar himself?”

“To the Czar, if you like.”

The story of the hangman having refused to do his duty, and preferring to take the flogging instead, suddenly changed the soul of Natalia Ivanovna. The pity and the horror she felt the moment she heard that the peasants were sentenced to death, could not be stifled now, but filled her whole soul.

“Filip Vassilievich, my friend. Write that telegram for me. I want to appeal to the Czar to pardon them.”

The constable shook his head. “I wonder whether that would not involve us in trouble?”

“I do it upon my own responsibility. I will not mention your name.”

“Is not she a kind woman,” thought the constable. “Very kindhearted, to be sure. If my wife had such a heart, our life would be a paradise, instead of what it is now.” And he wrote the telegram⁠—“To his Imperial Majesty, the Emperor. Your Majesty’s loyal subject, the widow of Peter Nikolaevich Sventizky, murdered by the peasants, throws herself at the sacred feet (this sentence, when he wrote it down, pleased the constable himself most of all) of your Imperial Majesty, and implores you to grant an amnesty to the peasants so-and-so, from such a province, district, and village, who have been sentenced to death.”

The telegram was sent by the constable himself, and Natalia Ivanovna felt relieved and happy. She had a feeling that since she, the widow of the murdered man, had forgiven the murderers, and was applying for an amnesty, the Czar could not possibly refuse it.

XI

Lisa Eropkin lived in a state of continual excitement. The longer she lived a true Christian life as it had been revealed to her, the more convinced she became that it was the right way, and her heart was full of joy.

She had two immediate aims before her. The one was to convert Mahin; or, as she put it to herself, to arouse his true nature, which was good and kind. She loved him, and the light of her love revealed the divine element in his soul which is at the bottom of all souls. But, further, she saw in him an exceptionally kind and tender heart, as well as a noble mind. Her other aim was to abandon her riches. She had first thought of giving away what she possessed in order to test Mahin; but afterwards she wanted to do so for her own sake, for the sake of her own soul. She began by simply giving money to anyone who wanted it. But her father stopped that; besides which, she felt disgusted at the crowd of supplicants who personally, and by letters, besieged her with demands for money. Then she resolved to apply to an old man, known to be a saint by his life, and to give him her money to dispose of in the way he thought best. Her father got angry with her when he heard about it. During a violent altercation he called her mad, a raving lunatic, and said he would take measures to prevent her from doing injury to herself.

Her father’s irritation proved contagious. Losing all control over herself, and sobbing with rage, she behaved with the greatest impertinence to her father, calling him a tyrant and a miser.

Then she asked his forgiveness. He said he did not mind what she said; but she saw plainly that he was offended, and in his heart did not forgive her. She did not feel inclined to tell Mahin about her quarrel with her father; as to her sister, she was very cold to Lisa, being jealous of Mahin’s love for her.

“I ought to confess to God,” she said to herself. As all this happened in Lent, she made up her mind to fast in preparation for the communion, and to reveal all her thoughts to the father confessor, asking his advice as to what she ought to decide for the future.

At a small distance from her town a monastery was situated, where an old monk lived who had gained a great reputation by his holy life, by his sermons and prophecies, as well as by the marvellous cures ascribed to him.

The monk had received a letter from Lisa’s father announcing the visit of his daughter, and telling him in what a state of excitement the young girl was. He also expressed the hope in that letter that the monk would influence her in the right way, urging her not to depart from the golden mean, and to live like a good Christian without trying to upset the present conditions of her life.

The monk received Lisa after he had seen many other