that...that...to give you the chance of hearing sound common-sense through the voice of honour and friendship.You can still mitigate your lot and, believe me, I will do all in my power to help you, as the honoured head of this province can bear witness!" At this point Sipiagin raised his voice."A real penitence of your wrongs and a full confession without reserve which will be duly presented in the proper quarters--""Your excellency," Markelov exclaimed suddenly, turning towards the governor--the very sound of his voice was calm, though it was a little hoarse; "I thought that you wanted to see me in order to cross-examine me again, but if I have been brought here solely by Mr.Sipiagin's wish, then please order me to be taken back again.
We cannot understand one another.All he says is so much Greek to me.""Greek, eh!" Kollomietzev shrieked."And to set peasants rioting, is that Greek too? Is that Greek too, eh?
"What have you here, your excellency? A landowner of the secret police? And how zealous he is!" Markelov remarked, a faint smile of pleasure playing about his pale lips.
Kollomietzev stamped and raged, but the governor stopped him.
"It serves you right, Simion Petrovitch.You shouldn't interfere in what is not your business.""Not my business...not my business...It seems to me that it's the business of every nobleman--"Markelov scanned Kollomietzev coldly and slowly, as if for the last time and then turned to Sipiagin.
"If you really want to know my views, my dear brother-in-law, here they are.I admit that the peasants had a right to arrest me and give me up if they disapproved of what I preached to them.
They were free to do what they wanted.I came to them, not they to me.As for the government-- if it does send me to Siberia, I'll go without grumbling, although I don't consider myself guilty.The government does its work, defends itself.Are you satisfied?"Sipiagin wrung his hands in despair.
"Satisfied!! What a word! That's not the point, and it is not for us to judge the doings of the government.The question, my dear Sergai, is whether you feel" (Sipiagin had decided to touch the tender strings) "the utter unreasonableness, senselessness, of your undertaking and are prepared to repent; and whether I can answer for you at all, my dear Sergai."Markelov frowned.
"I have said all I have to say and don't want to repeat it.""But don't you repent? Don't you repent?""Oh, leave me alone with your repentence! You want to steal into my very soul? Leave that, at any rate, to me."Sipiagin shrugged his shoulders.
"You were always like that; never would listen to common-sense.
You have a splendid chance of getting out of this quietly, honourably...
"Quietly, honourably," Markelov repeated savagely."We know those words.They are always flung at a man when he's wanted to do something mean! That is what these fine phrases are for!""We sympathise with you," Sipiagin continued reproachfully, "and you hate us.""Fine sympathy! To Siberia and hard labour with us; that is your sympathy.Oh, let me alone! let me alone! for Heaven's sake!"Markelov lowered his head.
He was agitated at heart, though externally calm.He was most of all tortured by the fact that he had been betrayed--and by whom?
By Eremy of Goloplok! That same Eremy whom he had trusted so much! That Mendely the sulky had not followed him, had really not surprised him.Mendely was drunk and was consequently afraid.But Eremy! For Markelov, Eremy stood in some way as the personification of the whole Russian people, and Eremy had deceived him! Had he been mistaken about the thing he was striving for? Was Kisliakov a liar? And were Vassily Nikolaevitch's orders all stupid? And all the articles, books, works of socialists and thinkers, every letter of which had seemed to him invincible truth, were they all nonsense too? Was it really so? And the beautiful simile of the abcess awaiting the prick of the lancet--was that, too, nothing more than a phrase?
"No! no! " he whispered to himself, and the colour spread faintly over his bronze-coloured face; "no! All these things are true, true...only I am to blame.I did not know how to do things, did not put things in the right way! I ought simply to have given orders, and if anyone had tried to hinder, or object--put a bullet through his head! there is nothing else to be done! He who is against us has no right to live.Don't they kill spies like dogs, worse than dogs?"All the details of his capture rose up in Markelov's mind.First the silence, the leers, then the shrieks from the back of the crowd...someone coming up sideways as if bowing to him, then that sudden rush, when he was knocked down.His own cries of "What are you doing, my boys?" and their shouts, "A belt! A belt!
tie him up! " Then the rattling of his bones...unspeakable rage...filth in his mouth, his nostrils..."Shove him in the cart! shove him in the cart!" someone roared with laughter..
"I didn't go about it in the right way..." That was the thing that most tormented him.That he had fallen under the wheel was his personal misfortune and had nothing to do with the cause--it was possible to bear that...but Eremy! Eremy!!
While Markelov was standing with his head sunk on his breast, Sipiagin drew the governor aside and began talking to him in undertones.He flourished two fingers across his forehead, as though he would suggest that the unfortunate man was not quite right in his head, in order to arouse if not sympathy, at any rate indulgence towards the madman.The governor shrugged his shoulders, opened and shut his eyes, regretted his inability to do anything, but made some sort of promise in the end."Tous les egards...certainement, tous les egards," the soft, pleasant words flowed through his scented moustache."But you know the law, my boy!""Of course I do!" Sipiagin responded with a sort of submissive severity.
