Arefyev got the book from the adjutant’s. Is it true or is it just invented? It’s written by Dumas.”
“It’s invented, of course.”
“Well, good-bye. Thank you.”
And Petrov vanished, and we rarely talked except in this style.
I began inquiring about him. M. positively warned me when he heard of the acquaintance. He told me that many of the convicts had inspired him with horror, especially at first, in his early days in prison; but not one of them, not even Gazin, had made such a terrible impression on him as this Petrov.
“He is the most determined, the most fearless of all the convicts,” said M. “He is capable of anything; he would stick at nothing if the fancy took him. He would murder you if it happened to strike him; he would murder you in a minute without flinching or giving it a thought afterwards. I believe he is not quite in his right mind.”
This view interested me very much. But M. could give me no reason for thinking so. And strange to say, I knew Petrov for several years afterwards and talked to him almost every day, he was genuinely attached to me all that time (though I am absolutely unable to say why) and all those years he behaved well in prison and did nothing horrible, yet every time I looked at him and talked to him I felt sure that M. was right, and that Petrov really was a most determined and fearless man who recognized no restraint of any sort. Why I felt this I can’t explain either.
I may mention, however, that this Petrov was the convict who had intended on being led out to be flogged to murder the major, when the latter was saved only “by a miracle” as the convicts said, through driving away just before. It had happened once, before he came to prison, that he had been struck by the colonel at drill. Probably he had been struck many times before, but this time he could not put up with it and he stabbed his colonel openly, in broad daylight, in the face of the regiment. But I don’t know all the details of this story; he never told it me. No doubt these were only outbursts when the man’s character showed itself fully all at once. But they were very rare in him. He really was sensible and even peaceable. Passions were latent in him, and hot, violent passions, too; but the burning embers were always covered with a layer of ashes and smouldered quietly. I never saw the faintest trace of vanity or boastful-
