The Murder -
A.P. Chekhov
I
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III IV
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VII
Late one evening a foreign steamer stopped in
the roads of Du in Sahalin and asked for coal. The captain was
asked to wait till morning, but he did not want to wait over an
hour, saying that if the weather changed for the worse in the
night there would be a risk of his having to go off without
coal. In the Gulf of Tartary the weather is liable to violent
changes in the course of half an hour, and then the shores of
Sahalin are dangerous. And already it had turned fresh, and
there was a considerable sea running.
A gang of convicts were sent to the mine from the Voevodsky
prison, the grimmest and most forbidding of all the prisons in
Sahalin. The coal had to be loaded upon barges, and then they
had to be towed by a steam-cutter alongside the steamer which
was anchored more than a quarter of a mile from the coast, and
then the unloading and reloading had to begin -- an exhausting
task when the barge kept rocking against the steamer and the men
could scarcely keep on their legs for sea-sickness. The
convicts, only just roused from their sleep, still drowsy, went
along the shore, stumbling in the darkness and clanking their
fetters. On the left, scarcely visible, was a tall, steep,
extremely gloomy-looking cliff, while on the right there was a
thick impenetrable mist, in which the sea moaned with a
prolonged monotonous sound, "Ah!. . . ah!. . . ah!. . . ah! . .
." And it was only when the overseer was lighting his pipe,
casting as he did so a passing ray of light on the escort with a
gun and on the coarse faces of two or three of the nearest
convicts, or when he went with his lantern close to the water
that the white crests of the foremost waves could be discerned.
One of this gang was Yakov Ivanitch, nicknamed among the
convicts the "Brush," on account of his long beard. No one had
addressed him by his name or his father's name for a long time
now; they called him simply Yashka.
He was here in disgrace, as, three months after coming to
Siberia, feeling an intense irresistible longing for home, he
had succumbed to temptation and run away; he had soon been
caught, had been sentenced to penal servitude for life and given
forty lashes. Then he was punished by flogging twice again for
losing his prison clothes, though on each occasion they were
stolen from him. The longing for home had begun from the very
time he had been brought to Odessa, and the convict train had
stopped in the night at Progonnaya; and Yakov, pressing to the
window, had tried to see his own home, and could see nothing in
the darkness. He had no one with whom to talk of home. His
sister Aglaia had been sent right across Siberia, and he did not
know where she was now. Dashutka was in Sahalin, but she had
been sent to live with some ex-convict in a far away settlement;
there was no news of her except that once a settler who had come
to the Voevodsky Prison told Yakov that Dashutka had three
children. Sergey Nikanoritch was serving as a footman at a
government official's at Du, but he could not reckon on ever
seeing him, as he was ashamed of being acquainted with convicts
of the peasant class.
The gang reached the mine, and the men took their places on the
quay. It was said there would not be any loading, as the weather
kept getting worse and the steamer was meaning to set off. They
could see three lights. One of them was moving: that was the
steam-cutter going to the steamer, and it seemed to be coming
back to tell them whether the work was to be done or not.
Shivering with the autumn cold and the damp sea mist, wrapping
himself in his short torn coat, Yakov Ivanitch looked intently
without blinking in the direction in which lay his home. Ever
since he had lived in prison together with men banished here
from all ends of the earth -- with Russians, Ukrainians, Tatars,
Georgians, Chinese, Gypsies, Jews -- and ever since he had
listened to their talk and watched their sufferings, he had
begun to turn again to God, and it seemed to him at last that he
had learned the true faith for which all his family, from his
grandmother Avdotya down, had so thirsted, which they had sought
so long and which they had never found. He knew it all now and
understood where God was, and how He was to be served, and the
only thing he could not understand was why men's destinies were
so diverse, why this simple faith which other men receive from
God for nothing and together with their lives, had cost him such
a price that his arms and legs trembled like a drunken man's
from all the horrors and agonies which as far as he could see
would go on without a break to the day of his death. He looked
with strained eyes into the darkness, and it seemed to him that
through the thousand miles of that mist he could see home, could
see his native province, his district, Progonnaya, could see the
darkness, the savagery, the heartlessness, and the dull, sullen,
animal indifference of the men he had left there. His eyes were
dimmed with tears; but still he gazed into the distance where
the pale lights of the steamer faintly gleamed, and his heart
ached with yearning for home, and he longed to live, to go back
home to tell them there of his new faith and to save from ruin
if only one man, and to live without suffering if only for one
day.
The cutter arrived, and the overseer announced in a loud voice
that there would be no loading.
"Back!" he commanded. "Steady!"
They could hear the hoisting of the anchor chain on the steamer.
A strong piercing wind was blowing by now; somewhere on the
steep cliff overhead the trees were creaking. Most likely a
storm was coming.
NOTES
Eve of the Annunciation: Annunciation Day was March 25
light: final words of a priest's prayer at end of the night
services
read the epistle in church: the usual order was for a selection
of the Epistles followed by a selection from the Gospels
dry food: a diet with no liquids or hot foods
lesser fasts: fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays
St. Peter's fast: the fast from Trinity until St. Peter's day,
June 29 (Julian Calendar); depending on when Trininty fell, the
fast could last from 8 days to 6 weeks
eat Lenten oil: oil that has no animal fat
Mount Athos: a Greek Orthodox monastery in Greece; no females,
even female animals, are premitted there
twelve great holy days: the 12 major holidays of the Russian
Orthodox Church
Molokanism: a religious sect that arose around 1765; their name
comes from their practice of drinking milk during Lent
Day of Forgiveness: the last Sunday before Lent, when Orthodox
Russians asked each other to forgive them
voice crying in the wilderness: Isaiah 40:3
Alexander I: Tsar Alexander I (1777-1825) became Tsar in 1801
Old Believer: someone who adhered to the ritual of the Russian
Orthodox Church as practiced before the 17th century reforms
Flagellant: a religious sect that arose in the 17th century;
they repudiated priests and much of the Orthodox Church, and
tended to favor clean, white clothes
thy brother: Matthew 5:24
camel: see Matthew 19:24
Marya's poor orphans: the Office of the Instituions of the
Empress Mariya was a foundation in memory of the Empress Mariya
Feodorovna (1759-1829) which administered girls' schools and
orphanages throughout Russia
Yegory's Day: April 23
I didn't know you, so you'll be rich: Russian folklore is that
failure to recognize a person whom one knows means that the
person will become rich
Du in Sahalin: Du was a small coal-mining town; Sakhalin, in
the Russian Far East, was an island used as a penal colony
Gulf of Tartary: body of water separating Sakhalin from the
mainland
Yashka: an insulting nickname, similar to the names masters used
for their serfs
settler: convicts usually had to stay in the area of the prison
even after completing their sentences; other settlers were
exiles who never actually served prison time
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