Page:The Kiss and Other Stories by Anton Tchekhoff, 1908.pdf/200

 of my workmen, and between us we rescued Mashenka and carried her home. It was a shame! She lay there in bed, all bandaged, all in compi'esses — only her eyes and nose could be seen — and looked up at the ceiling.

“‘Good day, Marya Semionovna,’ I would say to her. But she spoke not a word.

“And Vasya sat in another room, tore his hair, and cried, ‘I am a ruffian! I have murdered my wife! Send me in Thy mercy, Lord, death!’

“I sat half an hour with Mashenka, and spoke edification. I frightened her.

“‘The righteous,’ I said. ‘The righteous of this world are rewarded in Paradise, but thy place is fiery Gehenna with all adulteresses. . . . Do not dare resist thy husband, go down on thy knees to him!’ But she hadn't a word for me; even her eyes were still; I might as well have preached to a pillar.

“A day later Vasya was taken ill — something, it was, like cholera ; and that same evening I heard he was dead. They buried him. Mashenka was not at the funeral; she wouldn't let people see her shameless face and her blue marks. But soon they began to say in town that Vasya's death was not natural, that he was murdered by Mashenka. The police soon heard it They dug up Vasya, cut him open, and found his stomach full of arsenic. It was a simple case. Of course, the police took away Mashenka, and with her nnocent Kuzka. They put her in gaol. . . . About