The Greatest Russian Stories of Crime and Suspense (38 page)

“An as in this affair you too are not quite in the right, but really much to blame because your softness of heart is quite unsuitable for a military man, and this deficiency of your character is reflected in your subordinates, therefore you are to be present personally at the execution of my orders and to see that the flogging is done seriously—as severely as possible. For this purpose have the goodness to give orders that the young soldiers who have just arrived from the army, shall do the whipping, because our old soldiers are all infected with the liberalism of the guards. They won’t whip a comrade properly, but would only frighten the fleas away from his back. I myself will look in to see that they have done the guilty man properly.”

To evade in any way instructions given by a superior officer was of course impossible, and kind-hearted Captain Miller was obliged to execute with exactitude the orders received from the commander of his battalion.

The company was drawn up in the courtyard of the Ismailovsky barracks; the rods were fetched in sufficient quantities from the stores, and Private Postnikov was brought out of his prison and “done properly” at the hands of the zealous comrades, who had just arrived from the army. These men, who had not yet been as tainted by the liberalism of the guards, put all the dots on the i’s to the full, as ordered by the commander of the battalion. Then Postnikov, having received his punishment, was lifted up on the overcoat on which he had been whipped and carried to the hospital of the regiment.

The commander of the battalion, Svinin, as soon as he heard that the punishment had been inflicted, went away at once to visit Postnikov in the hospital in a most fatherly way, and to satisfy himself by a personal examination that his orders had been properly executed. Heartsore and nervous, Postnikov had been “done properly.” Svinin was satisfied and ordered that Postnikov should receive, on his behalf, a pound of sugar and a quarter of a pound of tea with which to regale himself while he was recovering. Postnikov, from his bed, heard this order about tea and said:

“I am very contented, your honour. Thank you for your fatherly kindness.”

And really he was contented, because while lying three days in prison he had expected something much worse. Two hundred lashes, according to the strict ideas of those days, was of very little consequence in comparison with the punishments that people suffered by order of the military courts; and that is the sort of punishment he would have awarded him if, by good luck, all the bold and tactful evolutions, which are related above, had not taken place.

But the number of persons who were pleased at the events just described was not limited to these.

The story of the exploit of Private Postnikov was secretly whispered in various circles of society in the capital, which in those days, when the public Press had no voice, lived in a world of endless gossip. In these verbal transmissions the name of the real hero, Private Postnikov, was lost, but instead of that the episode became embellished and received a very interesting and romantic character.

It was related that an extraordinary swimmer had swum from the side of the Peter and Paul Fortress, and had been fired at and wounded by one of the sentries stationed before the Winter Palace and an officer of the Invalid Guard, who was passing at the time, threw himself into the water and saved him from drowning, for which the one who had received the merited reward, and the other the punishment he deserved. These absurd reports even reached the Conventual House, inhabited at that time by His Eminence, a high ecclesiastic, who was cautious but not indifferent to worldly matters, and who was benevolently disposed towards, and a well-wisher of, the pious Moscow family, Svinin.

The story of the shot seemed improbable to the astute ecclesiastic. What nocturnal swimmer could it be? If he was an escaped prisoner, why was the sentry punished, for he had only done his duty in shooting at him, when he saw him swimming across the Neva from the Fortress. If he was not a prisoner, but another mysterious man, who had to be saved from the waves of the Neva, how could the sentry know anything about him? And then again, it could not have happened as it was whispered in frivolous society. In society much is accepted in a light-hearted and frivolous manner, but those who live in monasteries and conventual houses look upon all this much more seriously and are quite conversant with the real things of this world.

Once when Svinin happened to be at His Eminence’s to receive his blessing, the distinguished dignitary began: “By the by, what about that shot?” Svinin related the whole truth, in which there was nothing whatever “about that shot.”

The high ecclesiastic listened to the real story in silence, gently touching his white rosary and never taking his eyes off the narrator. When Svinin had finished, His Eminence quietly murmured in rippling speech:

“From all this one is obliged to conclude that in this matter the statements made were neither wholly nor on every occasion strictly true.”

Svinin stammered and then answered with the excuse that it was not he but General Kokoshkin who had made the report.

His Eminence passed the rosary through his waxen fingers in silence, and then murmured:

“One must make a distinction between a lie and what is not wholly true.”

Again the rosary, then silence, and at last a soft ripple of speech:

“A half truth is not a lie, but the less said about it the better.”

Svinin was encouraged and said:

“That is certainly true. What troubles me most is that I had to inflict a punishment upon a soldier, who, although he had neglected his duty …”

The rosary and a soft rippling interruption:

“The duties of service must never be neglected.”

“Yes, but it was done by him through magnanimity, through sympathy after such a struggle, and with danger. He understood that in saving the life of another man he was destroying himself. This is a high, holy feeling.…”

“Holiness is known to God; corporal punishment is not destruction for a common man, nor is it contrary to the customs of the nations, nor to the spirit of the Scriptures. The rod is easier borne by the coarse body than delicate suffering by the soul. In this case your justice has not suffered in the slightest degree.”

“But he was deprived of the reward for saving one who was perishing.”

“To save those who are perishing is not a merit, but rather a duty. He who could save but did not save is liable to the punishment of the laws; but he who saves does his duty.”

A pause, the rosary, and soft rippling speech:

“For a warrior to suffer degradation and wounds for his action is perhaps more profitable than marks of distinction. But what is most important is to be careful in this case, and never to mention anywhere or on any occasion what anybody said about it.”

It was evident His Eminence was also satisfied.

If I had the temerity of the happy chosen of Heaven, who through their great faith are enabled to penetrate into the secrets of the Will of God, then I would perhaps dare to permit myself the supposition that probably God Himself was satisfied with the conduct of Postnikov’s humble soul, which He had created. But my faith is small; it does not permit my mind to penetrate so high. I am of the earth, earthy. I think of those mortals who love goodness, simply because it is goodness and do not expect any reward for it, wherever it may be. I think these true and faithful people will also be entirely satisfied with this holy impulse of love, and not less holy endurance of the humble hero of my true and artless story.

MAXIM GORKY

A STRANGE MURDERER

Aleksey Maksimovich Peshkov (1868–1936) took the pseudonym Maxim Gorky because it means “the bitter one,” a condemnation of the way he was treated after running away from an abusive home when he was twelve. He worked as a baker, dishwasher, dockworker, night watchman and other low level jobs, often starving and being beaten. When he was 21, he tried to commit suicide, shooting himself in the chest where the bullet punctured his lung. He recovered but suffered numerous bouts of tuberculosis in ensuing years. He then traveled extensively, mainly associating with the lowest members of society: thieves, derelicts and prostitutes. His experiences provided background material when he turned to journalism and short story writing at the age of 24, becoming the first Russian author to write sympathetically of this stratum of society. Although he was in frequent trouble and jailed by the police for his outspoken, revolutionary political views, he became a folk hero to the Russian people who sympathized with his advocacy of workers and ordinary citizens against the overwhelming power of the Czarist government. He was opposed to the Bolshevik takeover in 1917 and soon moved to Italy, but great public pressure forced his return to Russia in 1930. He died a few years later, almost certainly at the hands of a police chief who confessed to having ordered his murder, which was suspected (though not proven) to have been ordered by Josef Stalin himself.

“A Strange Murderer” was first published in America in the October 1924 issue of
The Dial Magazine
.

“I can kill you very gently, very softly—

allow you to say a prayer first, then kill you.”

A
bout two months before his death Judge L. N. Sviatoukhine said to me one day:

“Of all the murderers that have come before me during the last thirteen years, one only, the packhorse-driver Merkouloff, ever awoke a feeling of terror before man and for man. The ordinary murderer is a hopelessly dull and obtuse creature, half man, half beast, incapable of realising the significance of his crime; or else a sly little dirty fellow, a squealing fox caught in a trap; or else again an unsuccessful, hysterical mono-maniac, desperate and bitter. But when Merkouloff stood in front of me in the dock I instantly scented something weird and unusual about him.”

Sviatoukhine half closed his eyes, recalling the picture to his memory.

“A large, broad-shouldered peasant of about forty-five, a thin, good-looking face, such a face as one usually sees on holy images. A long, grey beard, curly hair also grey, bald on the temples, and in the middle of the forehead, like a horn, a provocative, cossack forelock. From the deep orbits, quite out of keeping with that forelock, a pair of clever grey eyes glanced shrewdly at me, soft and full of pity.”

Breathing a heavy, putrid breath—the judge was dying of cancer of the stomach—Sviatoukhine nervously wrinkled up his earthen-coloured, exhausted face.

“What startled me particularly was this expression of pity in his eyes—where could it have come from? And I confess that my official indifference disappeared, giving way to an anxious curiosity, a new and unpleasant experience for me.

“He answered my questions in the dull voice of a man who is not used to or does not like talking much—his answers were short and precise—it was clear that he intended to make a frank confession. I said something to him which I would never have said to any other man in the same circumstances:

“‘You’ve got a fine face, Merkouloff; you do not look like a murderer.’

“At this he pulled up the chair in the dock, as though he were a guest there rather than a prisoner, sat down firmly on it, pressed his palms to his knees, and began to talk in a curiously melodious voice, as though he were playing on a reed-pipe. Perhaps that is not a very good simile, for a reed-pipe has also a dull note in it.

“‘You think, sir, that if I have committed this murder it means that I am a beast? No—I am not one—and since you appear to be interested in me, I will tell you my story.’

“And he told it me, calmly, consecutively, as murderers usually do not do, without attempting to justify himself or to awaken compassion.”

The judge spoke very slowly and indistinctly, his parched lips, covered with a kind of grey scale, moved with difficulty and he moistened them with his dark tongue, closing his eyes.

“I will try to recall his own words. There was a particular significance in them. They were words that amazed and shattered one. That compassionate glance of his, directed at me, crushed me, too. You understand? It was not plaintive but compassionate. He felt sorry for me, although I was in quite good health at that time.