All at once I saw her running through the little gate into my
yard, with bare feet, in her petticoat, and straight towards me; she
clutched at the bridle, getting all smeared with the pitch, and shaking
and weeping, she cried: 'I can't stand him; I loathe him; I can't bear
it! If you don't love me, better kill me!' I was angry, and I struck her
twice with the bridle, but at that instant Vasya ran in at the gate, and
in a despairing voice he shouted: 'Don't beat her! Don't beat her!' But
he ran up himself, and waving his arms, as though he were mad, he let
fly with his fists at her with all his might, then flung her on the
ground and kicked her. I tried to defend her, but he snatched up the
reins and thrashed her with them, and all the while, like a colt's
whinny, he went: 'He--he--he!'"

"I'd take the reins and let you feel them," muttered Varvara, moving
away; "murdering our sister, the damned brutes!..."

"Hold your tongue, you jade!" Dyudya shouted at her.

"'He--he--he!'" Matvey Savitch went on. "A carrier ran out of his
yard; I called to my workman, and the three of us got Mashenka away from
him and carried her home in our arms. The disgrace of it! The same day
I went over in the evening to see how things were. She was lying in bed,
all wrapped up in bandages, nothing but her eyes and nose to be
seen; she was looking at the ceiling. I said: 'Good-evening, Marya
Semyonovna!' She did not speak. And Vasya was sitting in the next room,
his head in his hands, crying and saying: 'Brute that I am! I've ruined
my life! O God, let me die!' I sat for half an hour by Mashenka and gave
her a good talking-to. I tried to frighten her a bit. 'The righteous,'
said I, 'after this life go to Paradise, but you will go to a Gehenna of
fire, like all adulteresses. Don't strive against your husband, go and
lay yourself at his feet.' But never a word from her; she didn't so
much as blink an eyelid, for all the world as though I were talking to
a post. The next day Vasya fell ill with something like cholera, and
in the evening I heard that he was dead. Well, so they buried him,
and Mashenka did not go to the funeral; she didn't care to show her
shameless face and her bruises. And soon there began to be talk all over
the district that Vasya had not died a natural death, that Mashenka had
made away with him. It got to the ears of the police; they had Vasya dug
up and cut open, and in his stomach they found arsenic. It was clear he
had bee