Leo Tolstoy Archive
Written: 1912
Source: The Forged Coupon: And Other Stories, by Leo Tolstoy, 1912, Translated from the Russian by Herman Bernstein, published by Ogilvie Publishing Company, 57 Rose Street, New York, produced for Gutenberg.org by Judith Boss and David Widger, 2006.
Transcription/Markup: Andy Carloff
Online Source: RevoltLib.com; 2021
The wife of Peter Nikolaevich Sventizky, a tall and handsome woman, as quiet and sleek as a well-fed heifer, had seen from her window how her husband had been murdered and dragged away into the fields. The horror of such a sight to Natalia Ivanovna was so intense—how could it be otherwise?—that all her other feelings vanished. No sooner had the crowd disappeared from view behind the garden fence, and the voices had become still; no sooner had the barefooted Malania, their servant, run in with her eyes starting out of her head, calling out in a voice more suited to the proclamation of glad tidings the news that Peter Nikolaevich had been murdered and thrown into the ravine, than Natalia Ivanovna felt that behind her first sensation of horror, there was another sensation; a feeling of joy at her deliverance from the tyrant, who through all the nineteen years of their married life had made her work without a moment’s rest. Her joy made her aghast; she did not confess it to herself, but hid it the more from those around. When his mutilated, yellow and hairy body was being washed and put into the coffin, she cried with horror, and wept and sobbed. When the coroner—a special coroner for serious cases—came and was taking her evidence, she noticed in the room, where the inquest was taking place, two peasants in irons, who had been charged as the principal culprits. One of them was an old man with a curly white beard, and a calm and severe countenance. The other was rather young, of a gypsy type, with bright eyes and curly disheveled hair. She declared that they were the two men who had first seized hold of Peter Nikolaevich’s hands. In spite of the gypsy-like peasant looking at her with his eyes glistening from under his moving eyebrows, and saying reproachfully: “A great sin, lady, it is. Remember your death hour!”—in spite of that, she did not feel at all sorry for them. On the contrary, she began to hate them during the inquest, and wished desperately to take revenge on her husband’s murderers.
A month later, after the case, which was committed for trial by court-martial, had ended in eight men being sentenced to hard labor, and in two—the old man with the white beard, and the gypsy boy, as she called the other—being condemned to be hanged, Natalia felt vaguely uneasy. But unpleasant doubts soon pass away under the solemnity of a trial. Since such high authorities considered that this was the right thing to do, it must be right.
The execution was to take place in the village itself. One Sunday Malania came home from church in her new dress and her new boots, and announced to her mistress that the gallows were being erected, and that the hangman was expected from Moscow on Wednesday. She also announced that the families of the convicts were raging, and that their cries could be heard all over the village.
Natalia Ivanovna did not go out of her house; she did not wish to see the gallows and the people in the village; she only wanted what had to happen to be over 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 labor 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.