both went to sleep, and next morning his
companion was found robbed and with his throat cut. A bloodstained knife
was found under the old merchant's pillow. He was tried, knouted, and
his nostrils having been torn off, "all in due form" as Karataev put it,
he was sent to hard labor in Siberia.

"And so, brother" (it was at this point that Pierre came up), "ten years
or more passed by. The old man was living as a convict, submitting as
he should and doing no wrong. Only he prayed to God for death. Well, one
night the convicts were gathered just as we are, with the old man among
them. And they began telling what each was suffering for, and how they
had sinned against God. One told how he had taken a life, another had
taken two, a third had set a house on fire, while another had simply
been a vagrant and had done nothing. So they asked the old man: 'What
are you being punished for, Daddy?'--'I, my dear brothers,' said he, 'am
being punished for my own and other men's sins. But I have not killed
anyone or taken anything that was not mine, but have only helped my
poorer brothers. I was a merchant, my dear brothers, and had much
property. 'And he went on to tell them all about it in due order. 'I
don't grieve for myself,' he says, 'God, it seems, has chastened me.
Only I am sorry for my old wife and the children,' and the old man began
to weep. Now it happened that in the group was the very man who had
killed the other merchant. 'Where did it happen, Daddy?' he said. 'When,
and in what month?' He asked all about it and his heart began to ache.
So he comes up to the old man like this, and falls down at his feet!
'You are perishing because of me, Daddy,' he says. 'It's quite true,
lads, that this man,' he says, 'is being tortured innocently and for
nothing! I,' he says, 'did that deed, and I put the knife under your
head while you were asleep. Forgive me, Daddy,' he says, 'for Christ's
sake!'"

Karataev paused, smiling joyously as he gazed into the fire, and he drew
the logs together.

"And the old man said, 'God will forgive you, we are all sinners in His
sight. I suffer for my own sins,' and he wept bitter tears. Well,
and what do you think, dear friends?" Karataev continued, his face
brightening more and more with a rapturous smile as if what he now had
to tell contained the chief charm and the whole meaning of his story:
"What do you think, dear fellows? That murderer confessed to the
authorities. 'I have taken six lives