“Wait, Korney,” the bailiff halted him. “Everything in its turn. You needn’t…Make a clean breast of it, men, where did you get the horse? Eh?”

Heavily and slowly, like snow that, having thawed underneath, slides off a roof, Vanyushka slipped from his chair to the floor, and on his knees began to mumble stammeringly:

“Orthodox folks—it isn’t me! It’s him! We didn’t steal the horse—we killed the charcoal-burner.…He’s there, not far away, buried in the snow. We didn’t steal the horse—we were just driving along, honest! It’s not me—all this! The horse itself dropped behind, it will come back! We didn’t want to kill him—he was the one who started it—he used to bludgeon! We were on our way to Borisovo—we wanted to rob the steward—first set the house on fire—but we didn’t touch the horses! He made me—he!…”

“Fire away!” shouted Salakin. He tore his cap off his head and threw it down at the feet of the peasants who stood before him like a silent, thick, dark wall.

“Go to it, Vanka, bury me!”

Vanka stopped speaking, dropped his head on his chest, and let his arms hang down helplessly.

The peasants looked at them in sullen silence for a long time. At last one of them, the man with the beaklike nose and the creaking voice, sighed and said aloud with vexation:

“Such evil-doers—fools, ugh!”

1901.