Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/289

Rh "How could I help hearing? The earth is full of rumours. But 'twas a long time ago, and he who heard it once has now forgotten it," said Makar Semenov.

"Perchance thou hast heard who killed the merchant?" asked Aksenov.

Makar Semenov smiled and said, "Well, methinks 'tis plain that he killed him within whose bag the knife was found. If anyone palmed off his knife on thee—well, thou knowest the proverb: 'No capture—no thief.' But how could anyone have shoved a knife into thy bag? Was it not at thy bed-head? Thou wouldst have heard him."

As soon as Aksenov heard these words he thought within himself that this was the very man who had killed the merchant. He arose and went away. All that night Aksenov could not sleep. A weary longing came upon him and made him conjure up all manner of things. He fancied he saw his wife just as she was when she accompanied him for the last time to the fair. He saw her just as if she was still before him—saw her face and her eyes, and heard her speaking to him and laughing. After that he fancied he saw his children just as they were then—there the little things were, one in his little fur, the other at the breast. And he called to mind what he himself had been in those days—so young and merry; he recalled how he had sat in the little verandah of the tavern where they had seized him, playing on his guitar, and how merry and gay his soul then was. And he remembered the execution-place where they had cut him with the knout and how he had wept, 239