r them?" asked Mahin.

"No. I did not know then."

"Well, and now?"

Stepan smiled with a sad smile. "Now," he said, "I would not do it even
if I were to be burned alive."

"But why?

"Because I have come to know that all men are brethren."

"What about me? Am I your brother also?"

"Of course you are."

"And how is it that I, your brother, am sending you to hard labour?"

"It is because you don't know."

"What do I not know?"

"Since you judge, it means obviously that you don't know."

"Go on. . . . What next?"

VI

Now it was not Chouev, but Stepan who used to read the gospel in the
common cell. Some of the prisoners were singing coarse songs, while
others listened to Stepan reading the gospel and talking about what he
had read. The most attentive among those who listened were two of the
prisoners, Vassily, and a convict called Mahorkin, a murderer who had
become a hangman. Twice during his stay in this prison he was called
upon to do duty as hangman, and both times in far-away places where
nobody could be found to execute the sentences.

Two of the peasants who had killed Peter Nikolaevich Sventizky, had been
sentenced to the gallows, and Mahorkin was ordered to go to Pensa to
hang them. On all previous occasions he used to write a petition to the
governor of the province--he knew well how to read and to write--stating
that he had been ordered to fulfil his duty, and asking for money
for his expenses. But now, to the greatest astonishment of the prison
authorities, he said he did not intend to go, and added that he would
not be a hangman any more.

"And what about being flogged?" cried the governor of the prison.

"I will have to bear it, as the law commands us not to kill."

"Did you get that from Pelageushkine? A nice sort of a prison prophet!
You just wait and see what this will cost you!"

When Mahin was told of that incident, he was greatly impressed by the
fact of Stepan's influence on the hangman, who refused to do his duty,
running the risk of being hanged himself for insubordination.

VII

AT an evening party at the Eropkins, Mahin, who was paying attentions
to the two young daughters of the house--they were rich matches, both of
them--having earned great applause for his fine singing and playing
the piano, began telling the company about the strange convict who had
converted the hangman. Mahin told his story very accurately, as he had a
very good memory, which was all the mor