‘Where are you from?’ asked some one.

‘From Vladímir. My family are of that town. My name is Makár, and they also call me Semyónitch.’

Aksyónof raised his head and said: ‘Tell me, Semyónitch, do you know anything of the merchants Aksyónof, of Vladímir? Are they still alive?’

‘Know them? Of course I do. The Aksyónofs are rich, though their father is in Siberia: a sinner like ourselves, it seems! As for you, Gran’dad, how did you come here?’

Aksyónof did not like to speak of his misfortune. He only sighed, and said, ‘For my sins I have been in prison these twenty-six years.’

‘What sins?’ asked Makár Semyónitch.

But Aksyónof only said, ‘Well, well—I must have deserved it!’ He would have said no more, but his companions told the new-comer how Aksyónof came to be in Siberia: how some one had killed a merchant and had put a knife among Aksyónof’s things, and Aksyónof had been unjustly condemned.

When Makár Semyónitch heard this, he looked at Aksyónof, slapped his own knee, and exclaimed, ‘Well this is wonderful! Really wonderful! But how old you’ve grown, Gran’dad!’

The others asked him why he was so surprised, and where he had seen Aksyónof before; but Makár Semyónitch did not reply. He only said: ‘It’s wonderful that we should meet here, lads!’

These words made Aksyónof wonder whether this man knew who had killed the merchant; so he said ‘Perhaps, Semyónitch, you have heard of that affair or maybe you’ve seen me before?’

‘How could I help hearing? The world’s full of rumors. But it’s long ago, and I’ve forgotten what I heard.’

‘Perhaps you heard who killed the merchant?’ asked Aksyónof.

Makár Semyónitch laughed, and replied, ‘It must have been him in whose bag the knife was found! If some one else hid the knife there, “He’s not a thief till he’s caught,” as the saying is. How could any one put a knife into your bag while it was under your head? It would surely have woke you up?’

When Aksyónof heard these words, he felt sure this was the man who had killed the merchant. He rose and went away. All that night Aksyónof lay awake. He felt terribly unhappy, and all sorts of images rose in his mind. There was the image of his wife as she was when he parted from her to go to the fair. He saw her as if she were present; her face and her eyes rose before him; he heard her speak and laugh. Then he saw his children, quite little, as they were at that time: one with a little cloak on, another at his mother’s breast. And then he remembered himself as he used to be—young and merry. He remembered how he sat playing the guitar in the porch of the inn where he was arrested, and how free from care he had been. He saw, in his mind, the place where he was flogged, the executioner, and the people standing around; the chains, the convicts, all the twenty-six years of his prison life, and his premature old age. The thought of it all made him so wretched that he was ready to kill himself.