by Maxim Gorky
The porcelain-faced man read a paper indifferently; his even voice filled the hall with weariness, and the people, enfolded by it, sat motionless as if benumbed. Four lawyers softly but animatedly conversed with the prisoners. They all moved powerfully, briskly, and called to mind large blackbirds.
On one side of the old man a judge with small, bleared eyes filled the armchair with his fat, bloated body. On the other side sat a stooping man with reddish mustache on his pale face. His head was wearily thrown on the back of the chair, his eyes, half-closed, he seemed to be reflecting over something. The face of the prosecuting attorney was also worn, bored, and unexpectant. Behind the judge sat the mayor of the city, a portly man, who meditatively stroked his cheek; the marshal of the nobility, a gray-haired, large-bearded, ruddy-faced man, with large, kind eyes; and the district elder, who wore a sleeveless peasant overcoat, and possessed a huge belly which apparently embarrassed him; he endeavored to cover it with the folds of his overcoat, but it always slid down and showed again.
“There are no criminals here and no judges,” Pavel’s vigorous voice was heard. “There are only captives here, and conquerors!”
Silence fell. For a few seconds the mother’s ears heard only the thin, hasty scratch of the pen on the paper and the beating of her own heart.
The oldest judge also seemed to be listening to something from afar. His associates stirred. Then he said:
“Hm! yes—Andrey Nakhodka, do you admit—”
Somebody whispered, “Rise!”
Andrey slowly rose, straightened himself, and pulling his mustache looked at the old man from the corners of his eyes.
“Yes! To what can I confess myself guilty?” said the Little Russian in his slow, surging voice, shrugging his shoulders. “I did not murder nor steal; I simply am not in agreement with an order of life in which people are compelled to rob and kill one another.”
“Answer briefly—yes or no?” the old man said with an effort, but distinctly.
On the benches back of her the mother felt there was animation; the people began to whisper to one another about something and stirred, sighing as if freeing themselves from the cobweb spun about them by the gray words of the porcelain-faced man.
“Do you hear how they speak?” whispered Sizov.
“Yes.”
“Fedor Mazin, answer!”
“I don’t want to!” said Fedya clearly, jumping to his feet. His face reddened with excitation, his eyes sparkled. For some reason he hid his hands behind his back.
Sizov groaned softly, and the mother opened her eyes wide in astonishment.
“I declined a defense—I’m not going to say anything—I don’t regard your court as legal! Who are you? Did the people give you the right to judge us? No, they did not! I don’t know you.” He sat down and concealed his heated face behind Andrey’s shoulders.
The fat judge inclined his head to the old judge and whispered something. The old judge, pale-faced, raised his eyelids and slanted his eyes at the prisoners, then extended his hand on the table, and wrote something in pencil on a piece of paper lying before him. The district elder swung his head, carefully shifting his feet, rested his abdomen on his knees, and his hands on his abdomen. Without moving his head the old judge turned his body to the red-mustached judge, and began to speak to him quickly. The red-mustached judge inclined his head to listen. The marshal of the nobility conversed with the prosecuting attorney; the mayor of the city listened and smiled, rubbing his cheek. Again the dull speech of the old judge was heard. All four lawyers listened attentively. The prisoners exchanged whispers with one another, and Fedya, smiling in confusion, hid his face.
“How he cut them off! Straight, downright, better than all!” Sizov whispered in amazement in the ear of the mother. “Ah, you little boy!”
The mother smiled in perplexity. The proceedings seemed to be nothing but the necessary preliminary to something terrible, which would appear and at once stifle everybody with its cold horror. But the calm words of Pavel and Andrey had sounded so fearless and firm, as if uttered in the little house of the suburb, and not in the presence of the court. Fedya’s hot, youthful sally amused her; something bold and fresh grew up in the hall, and she guessed from the movement of the people back of her that she was not the only one who felt this.
“Your opinion,” said the old judge.
The bald-headed prosecuting attorney arose, and, steadying himself on the desk with one hand, began to speak rapidly, quoting figures. In his voice nothing terrible was heard.
At the same time, however, a sudden dry, shooting attack disturbed the heart of the mother. It was an uneasy suspicion of something hostile to her, which did not threaten, did not shout, but unfolded itself unseen, soundless, intangible. It swung lazily and dully about the judges, as if enveloping them with an impervious cloud, through which nothing from the outside could reach them. She looked at them. They were incomprehensible to her. They were not angry at Pavel or at Fedya; they did not shout at the young men, as she had expected; they did not abuse them in words, but put all their questions reluctantly, with the air of “What’s the use?”. It cost them an effort to hear the answers to the end. Apparently they lacked interest because they knew everything beforehand.
There before her stood the gendarme, and spoke in a bass voice:
“Pavel Vlasov was named as the ringleader.”
“And Nakhodka?” asked the fat judge in his lazy undertone.
“He, too.”
“May I—”
The old judge asked a question of somebody:
“You have nothing?”
All the judges seemed to the mother to be worn out and ill. A sickened weariness marked their poses and voices, a sickened weariness and a bored, gray ennui. It was an evident nuisance to them, all this—the uniforms, the hall, the gendarmes, the lawyers, the obligation to sit in armchairs, and to put questions concerning things perforce already known to them. The mother in general was but little acquainted with the masters; she had scarcely ever seen them; and now she regarded the faces of the judges as something altogether new and incomprehensible, deserving pity, however, rather than inspiring horror.
The familiar, yellow-faced officer stood before them, and told about Pavel and Andrey, stretching the words with an air of importance. The mother involuntarily laughed, and thought: “You don’t know much, my little father.”
And now, as she looked at the people behind the grill, she ceased to feel dread for them; they did not evoke alarm, pity was not for them; they one and all called forth in her only admiration and love, which warmly embraced her heart; the admiration was calm, the love joyously distinct. There they sat to one side, by the wall, young, sturdy, scarcely taking any part in the monotonous talk of the witnesses and judges, or in the disputes of the lawyers with the prosecuting attorney. They behaved as if the talk did not concern them in the least. Sometimes somebody would laugh contemptuously, and say something to the comrades, across whose faces, then, a sarcastic smile would also quickly pass. Andrey and Pavel conversed almost the entire time with one of their lawyers, whom the mother had seen the day before at Nikolay’s, and had heard Nikolay address as comrade. Mazin, brisker and more animated than the others, listened to the conversation. Now and then Samoylov said something to Ivan Gusev; and the mother noticed that each time Ivan gave a slight elbow nudge to a comrade, he could scarcely restrain a laugh; his face would grow red, his cheeks would puff up, and he would have to incline his head. He had already sniffed a couple of times, and for several minutes afterward sat with blown cheeks trying to be serious. Thus, in each comrade his youth played and sparkled after his fashion, lightly bursting the restraint he endeavored to put upon its lively effervescence. She looked, compared, and reflected. She was unable to understand or express in words her uneasy feeling of hostility.
Sizov touched her lightly with his elbow; she turned to him, an
d found a look of contentment and slight preoccupation on his face.
“Just see how they’ve intrenched themselves in their defiance! Fine stuff in ’em! Eh? Barons, eh? Well, and yet they’re going to be sentenced!”
The mother listened, unconsciously repeating to herself:
“Who will pass the sentence? Whom will they sentence?”
The witnesses spoke quickly, in their colorless voices, the judges reluctantly and listlessly. Their bloodless, worn-out faces stared into space unconcernedly. They did not expect to see or hear anything new. At times the fat judge yawned, covering his smile with his puffy hand, while the red-mustached judge grew still paler, and sometimes raised his hand to press his finger tightly on the bone of his temple, as he looked up to the ceiling with sorrowful, widened eyes. The prosecuting attorney infrequently scribbled on his paper, and then resumed his soundless conversation with the marshal of the nobility, who stroked his gray beard, rolled his large, beautiful eyes, and smiled, nodding his head with importance. The city mayor sat with crossed legs, and beat a noiseless tattoo on his knee, giving the play of his fingers concentrated attention. The only one who listened to the monotonous murmur of the voices seemed to be the district elder, who sat with inclined head, supporting his abdomen on his knees and solicitously holding it up with his hands. The old judge, deep in his armchair, stuck there immovably. The proceedings continued to drag on in this way for a long, long time; and ennui again numbed the people with its heavy, sticky embrace.
The mother saw that this large hall was not yet pervaded by that cold, threatening justice which sternly uncovers the soul, examines it, and seeing everything estimates its value with incorruptible eyes, weighing it rigorously with honest hands. Here was nothing to frighten her by its power or majesty.
“I declare—” said the old judge clearly, and arose as he crushed the following words with his thin lips.
The noise of sighs and low exclamations, of coughing and scraping of feet, filled the hall as the court retired for a recess. The prisoners were led away. As they walked out, they nodded their heads to their relatives and familiars with a smile, and Ivan Gusev shouted to somebody in a modulated voice:
“Don’t lose courage, Yegor.”
The mother and Sizov walked out into the corridor.
“Will you go to the tavern with me to take some tea?” the old man asked her solicitously. “We have an hour and a half’s time.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Well, then I won’t go, either. No, say! What fellows those are! They act as if they were the only real people, and the rest nothing at all. They’ll all go scot-free, I’m sure. Look at Fedka, eh?”
Samoylov’s father came up to them holding his hat in his hand. He smiled sullenly and said:
“My Vasily! He declined a defense, and doesn’t want to palaver. He was the first to have the idea. Yours, Pelagueya, stood for lawyers; and mine said: ‘I don’t want one.’ And four declined after him. Hm, ye-es.”
At his side stood his wife. She blinked frequently, and wiped her nose with the end of her handkerchief. Samoylov took his beard in his hand, and continued looking at the floor.
“Now, this is the queer thing about it: you look at them, those devils, and you think they got up all this at random—they’re ruining themselves for nothing. And suddenly you begin to think: ‘And maybe they’re right!’ You remember that in the factory more like them keep on coming, keep on coming. They always get caught; but they’re not destroyed, no more than common fish in the river get destroyed. No. And again you think, ‘And maybe power is with them, too.’”
“It’s hard for us, Stepan Petrov, to understand this affair,” said Sizov.
“It’s hard, yes,” agreed Samoylov.
His wife noisily drawing in air through her nose remarked:
“They’re all strong, those imps!” With an unrestrained smile on her broad, wizened face, she continued: “You, Nilovna, don’t be angry with me because I just now slapped you, when I said that your son is to blame. A dog can tell who’s the more to blame, to tell you the truth. Look at the gendarmes and the spies, what they said about our Vasily! He has shown what he can do too!”
She apparently was proud of her son, perhaps even without understanding her feeling; but the mother did understand her feeling, and answered with a kind smile and quiet words:
“A young heart is always nearer to the truth.”
People rambled about the corridor, gathered into groups, speaking excitedly and thoughtfully in hollow voices. Scarcely anybody stood alone; all faces bore evidence of a desire to speak, to ask, to listen. In the narrow white passageway the people coiled about in sinuous curves, like dust carried in circles before a powerful wind. Everybody seemed to be seeking something hard and firm to stand upon.
The older brother of Bukin, a tall, red-faced fellow, waved his hands and turned about rapidly in all directions.
“The district elder Klepanov has no place in this case,” he declared aloud.
“Keep still, Konstantin!” his father, a little old man, tried to dissuade him, and looked around cautiously.
“No; I’m going to speak out! There’s a rumor afloat about him that last year he killed a clerk of his on account of the clerk’s wife. What kind of a judge is he? permit me to ask. He lives with the wife of his clerk—what have you got to say to that? Besides, he’s a well-known thief!”
“Oh, my little father—Konstantin!”
“True!” said Samoylov. “True, the court is not a very just one.”
Bukin heard his voice and quickly walked up to him, drawing the whole crowd after him. Red with excitement, he waved his hands and said:
“For thievery, for murder, jurymen do the trying. They’re common people, peasants, merchants, if you please; but for going against the authorities you’re tried by the authorities. How’s that?”
“Konstantin! Why are they against the authorities? Ah, you! They—”
“No, wait! Fedor Mazin said the truth. If you insult me, and I land you one on your jaw, and you try me for it, of course I’m going to turn out guilty. But the first offender—who was it? You? Of course, you!”
The watchman, a gray man with a hooked nose and medals on his chest, pushed the crowd apart, and said to Bukin, shaking his finger at him:
“Hey! don’t shout! Don’t you know where you are? Do you think this is a saloon?”
“Permit me, my cavalier, I know where I am. Listen! If I strike you and you me, and I go and try you, what would you think?”
“And I’ll order you out,” said the watchman sternly.
“Where to? What for?”
“Into the street, so that you shan’t bawl.”
“The chief thing for them is that people should keep their mouths shut.”
“And what do you think?” the old man bawled. Bukin threw out his hands, and again measuring the public with his eyes, began to speak in a lower voice:
“And again—why are the people not permitted to be at the trial, but only the relatives? If you judge righteously, then judge in front of everybody. What is there to be afraid of?”
Samoylov repeated, but this time in a louder tone:
“The trial is not altogether just, that’s true.”
The mother wanted to say to him that she had heard from Nikolay of the dishonesty of the court; but she had not wholly comprehended Nikolay, and had forgotten some of his words. While trying to recall them she moved aside from the people, and noticed that somebody was looking at her—a young man with a light mustache. He held his right hand in the pocket of his trousers, which made his left shoulder seem lower than the right, and this peculiarity of his figure seemed familiar to the mother. But he turned from her, and she again lost herself in the endeavor to recollect, and forgot about him immediately. In a minute, however, her ear was caught by the low question:
“This woman on the left?”
And somebody in a louder voice cheerfully answered:
“Yes.”
She looked around. The man with the uneven shoulders stood sidewise toward her, and said something to his neighbor, a black-bearded fellow with a short overcoat and boots up to his knees.
Again her memory stirred uneasily, but did not yield any distinct results.
The watchman opened the door of the hall, and shouted:
“Relatives, enter; show your tickets!”
A sullen voice said lazily:
“Tickets! Like a circus!”
All the people now showed signs of a dull excitement, an uneasy passion. They began to behave more freely, and hummed and disputed with the watchman.
Sitting down on the bench, Sizov mumbled something to the mother.
“What is it?” asked the mother.
“Oh, nothing—the people are fools! They know nothing; they live groping about and groping about.”
The bellman rang; somebody announced indifferently:
“The session has begun!”
Again all arose, and again, in the same order, the judges filed in and sat down; then the prisoners were led in.
“Pay attention!” whispered Sizov; “the prosecuting attorney is going to speak.”
The mother craned her neck and extended her whole body. She yielded anew to expectation of the horrible.
Standing sidewise toward the judges, his head turned to them, leaning his elbow on the desk, the prosecuting attorney sighed, and abruptly waving his right hand in the air, began to speak:
The mother could not make out the first words. The prosecuting attorney’s voice was fluent, thick; it sped on unevenly, now a bit slower, now a bit faster. His words stretched out in a thin line, like a gray seam; suddenly they burst out quickly and whirled like a flock of black flies around a piece of sugar. But she did not find anything horrible in them, nothing threatening. Cold as snow, gray as ashes, they fell and fell, filling the hall with something which recalled a slushy day in early autumn. Scant in feeling, rich in words, the speech seemed not to reach Pavel and his comrades. Apparently it touched none of them; they all sat there quite composed, smiling at times as before, and conversed without sound. At times they frowned to cover up their smiles.