The Forged Coupon: Chapter 1

Chapter 1

THE whole time he was lying in the gutter Stepan saw continually before
his eyes the thin, kindly, and frightened face of Maria Semenovna,
and seemed to hear her voice. "How can you?" she went on saying in his
imagination, with her peculiar lisping voice. Stepan saw over again
and over again before him all he had done to her. In horror he shut
his eyes, and shook his hairy head, to drive away these thoughts and
recollections. For a moment he would get rid of them, but in their
place horrid black faces with red eyes appeared and frightened him
continuously. They grinned at him, and kept repeating, "Now you have
done away with her you must do away with yourself, or we will not leave
you alone." He opened his eyes, and again he saw HER and heard her
voice; and felt an immense pity for her and a deep horror and
disgust with himself. Once more he shut his eyes, and the black faces
reappeared. Towards the evening of the next day he rose and went, with
hardly any strength left, to a public-house. There he ordered a drink,
and repeated his demands over and over again, but no quantity of liquor
could make him intoxicated. He was sitting at a table, and swallowed
silently one glass after another.

A police officer came in. "Who are you?" he asked Stepan.

"I am the man who murdered all the Dobrotvorov people last night," he
answered.

He was arrested, bound with ropes, and brought to the nearest
police-station; the next day he was transferred to the prison in the
town. The inspector of the prison recognised him as an old inmate, and a
very turbulent one; and, hearing that he had now become a real criminal,
accosted him very harshly.

"You had better be quiet here," he said in a hoarse voice, frowning, and
protruding his lower jaw. "The moment you don't behave, I'll flog you to
death! Don't try to escape--I will see to that!"

"I have no desire to escape," said Stepan, dropping his eyes. "I
surrendered of my own free will."

"Shut up! You must look straight into your superior's eyes when you talk
to him," cried the inspector, and struck Stepan with his fist under the
jaw.

At that moment Stepan again saw the murdered woman before him, and
heard her voice; he did not pay attention, therefore, to the inspector's
words.

"What?" he asked, coming to his senses when he felt the blow on his
face.

"Be off! Don't pretend you don't hear."

The inspector expected Stepan to be violent, to talk to the other
prisoners, to make attempts to escape from prison. But nothing of the
kind ever happened. Whenever the guard or the inspector himself looked
into his cell through the hole in the door, they saw Stepan sitting on a
bag filled with straw, holding his head with his hands and whispering to
himself. On being brought before the examining magistrate charged with
the inquiry into his case, he did not behave like an ordinary convict.
He was very absent-minded, hardly listening to the questions; but when
he heard what was asked, he answered truthfully, causing the utmost
perplexity to the magistrate, who, accustomed as he was to the necessity
of being very clever and very cunning with convicts, felt a strange
sensation just as if he were lifting up his foot to ascend a step and
found none. Stepan told him the story of all his murders; and did it
frowning, with a set look, in a quiet, businesslike voice, trying to
recollect all the circumstances of his crimes. "He stepped out of the
house," said Stepan, telling the tale of his first murder, "and stood
barefooted at the door; I hit him, and he just groaned; I went to his
wife, . . ." And so on.

One day the magistrate, visiting the prison cells, asked Stepan whether
there was anything he had to complain of, or whether he had any wishes
that might be granted him. Stepan said he had no wishes whatever,
and had nothing to complain of the way he was treated in prison. The
magistrate, on leaving him, took a few steps in the foul passage, then
stopped and asked the governor who had accompanied him in his visit how
this prisoner was behaving.

"I simply wonder at him," said the governor, who was very pleased with
Stepan, and spoke kindly of him. "He has now been with us about two
months, and could be held up as a model of good behaviour. But I
am afraid he is plotting some mischief. He is a daring man, and
exceptionally strong."

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