“Your excellency,” answered Murazoff, “whoever the man may be whom you designate as a rascal, he is still a man. How can I help defending a person when I know that half the evil which he does proceeds from coarseness and ignorance? Surely we commit injustice at every step, and are at every instant the cause of the misery of a fellow-creature, even when we have no evil intentions. You also have certainly been guilty of great injustice.”

“What!” exclaimed the prince in amazement, thoroughly astounded by the unexpected turn which the conversation had taken.

Murazoff remained silent for a moment, as though pondering, but he finally said, “Well, in the case of Derpennikoff, for instance.”

“Afanasiy Vasilievitch, that was a crime against the fundamental laws of the empire: it was tantamount to a betrayal of one’s native land.”

“I do not seek to justify him. But is it just to condemn a young fellow who has been betrayed and led astray by others, by reason of his youth? is it just to condemn him exactly as though he had been one of the ringleaders? The same fate overtook Derpennikoff and a certain Voronnoi-Dryannoi, but their crimes were certainly not identical.”

“For heaven’s sake,” rejoined the prince, with perceptible emotion, “do you know anything about that matter? Tell me; it was only recently that I wrote direct to Petersburg in reference to a mitigation of Derpennikoff’s punishment.”

“No, your excellency, I did not refer to that. I know nothing more about the matter than you do. Although there certainly does exist one circumstance which might be used to Derpennikoff’s advantage, only he himself will not consent to utilise it, because another would be made to suffer thereby. I was merely thinking whether you had not been over-hasty on that occasion. But pardon me, your excellency; I only judge according to my weak understanding. You have several times enjoined upon me the duty of expressing myself frankly. When I was a master over men, I had a great many labourers of all sorts, both good and bad; now, when a peasant has misbehaved himself, if you do not take special circumstances and the man’s former life into consideration, if you do not inquire coolly into every particular, you never attain to any real comprehension of the matter; whereas, if you question him as a brother might question a brother, he will at once tell you everything of his own accord. He will not even ask for mercy, nor will he cherish any hard feelings towards anyone, for he will perceive clearly that it is not you, but the law, which is punishing him.”

The prince then fell into though; but soon numerous voices were heard in the large office near the audience chamber. The prince was awaiting the woman accused of having forged Alexandra Ivanovna’s signature to the spurious will. Hearing the noise and feeling impatient, he went and opened the door, whereupon in the office he saw a number of clerks gathered round a man who was stuttering and stammering in answer to their questions. Near by there stood the accused woman, guarded by three soldiers. While the man stammered and gesticulated, she wept and wrung her hands; and at this sight some townsfolk who were also present asked permission to explain matters to his excellency. The confusion was so great that it seemed as if a riot were going on. The prince, in consternation, glanced at Murazoff, who took upon himself to call six of the oldest of the townsfolk into the governor’s private room. It then appeared that the stammering man was the husband of the woman, that the latter had been arrested by surprise during the morning, and had never had anything to do with any will, being quite incapable of acting a part or of signing even her own name, much less that of Alexandra Ivanovna. The prince, though at first much astonished to find, as he thought, that the wrong woman had been arrested (for he was ignorant of the ruse resorted to by Samosvistoff in favour of Tchitchikoff), finally gave orders for the alarmed couple to be sent home in one of his own carriages, and he expressed his regret to them that such a mistake had been made.


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