at his feet.

"Doctor, kind gentleman!" he besought him, blinking and again passing
his open hand over his nose. "Show heavenly mercy; let Vaska go
home! We shall remember you in our prayers for ever! Your honour,
let him go! They are all starving! Mother's wailing day in, day
out, Vaska's wife's wailing . . . it's worse than death! I don't
care to look upon the light of day. Be merciful; let him go, kind
gentleman!"

"Are you stupid or out of your senses?" asked the doctor angrily.
"How can I let him go? Why, he is a convict."

Kirila began crying. "Let him go!"

"Tfoo, queer fellow! What right have I? Am I a gaoler or what? They
brought him to the hospital for me to treat him, but I have as much
right to let him out as I have to put you in prison, silly fellow!

"But they have shut him up for nothing! He was in prison a year
before the trial, and now there is no saying what he is there for.
It would have been a different thing if he had murdered someone,
let us say, or stolen horses; but as it is, what is it all about?"

"Very likely, but how do I come in?"

"They shut a man up and they don't know themselves what for. He was
drunk, your honour, did not know what he was doing, and even hit
father on the ear and scratched his own cheek on a branch, and two
of our fellows-they wanted some Turkish tobacco, you see-began
telling him to go with them and break into the Armenian's shop at
night for tobacco. Being drunk, he obeyed them, the fool. They broke
the lock, you know, got in, and did no end of mischief; they turned
everything upside down, broke the windows, and scattered the flour
about. They were drunk, that is all one can say! Well, the constable
turned up . . . and with one thing and another they took them off
to the magistrate. They have been a whole year in prison, and a
week ago, on the Wednesday, they were all three tried in the town.
A soldier stood behind them with a gun . . . people were sworn in.
Vaska was less to blame than any, but the gentry decided that he
was the ringleader. The other two lads were sent to prison, but
Vaska to a convict battalion for three years. And what for? One
should judge like a Christian!"

"I have nothing to do with it, I tell you again. Go to the authorities."

"I have been already! I've been to the court; I have tried to send
in a petition--they wouldn't take a petition; I have been to the
police captain, and I have been to the examining magistrate, and
everyone sa