did not speak. ‘I am sick of you,’ says I, ‘say your prayers!’ And then I snatched her by the hair; she had two thick long plaits. I twisted them round my hand and held her tight from behind between my knees. I drew out my knife, I pulled her head back and I slid the knife along her throat. She screamed, the blood spurted out, I threw down the knife, flung my arms round her, lay down on the ground, embraced her and screamed over her, yelling; she screamed and I screamed; she was fluttering all over, struggling to get out of my arms, and the blood was simply streaming, simply streaming on to my face and on to my hands. I left her, a panic came over me, and I left the horse and set off running, and ran home along the backs of the houses and straight to the bath-house. We had an old bath-house we didn’t use I squeezed myself into a corner under the steps and there I sat. And there I sat till nightfall.”
“And Akulka?”
“She must have got up, too, after I had gone and walked homewards too. They found her a hundred paces from the place.”
“Then you hadn’t killed her.”
“Yes. . . .” Shishkov paused for a moment.
“There’s a vein, you know,” observed Tcherevin, “if you don’t cut through that vein straightaway a man will go on struggling and won’t die, however much blood is lost.”
“But she did die. They found her dead in the evening. They informed the police, began searching for me, and found me at nightfall in the bath-house! . . . And here I’ve been close upon four years,” he added, after a pause.
“H’m . . . to be sure if you don’t beat them there will be trouble,” Tcherevin observed coolly and methodically, pulling out his tobacco-pouch again. He began taking long sniffs at intervals. ‘Then again you seem to have been a regular fool, young fellow, too. I caught my wife with a lover once. So I called her into the barn; I folded the bridle in two. ‘To whom do you swear to be true? To whom do you swear to be true?’ says I. And I did give her a beating with that bridle, I beat her for an hour and a half. ‘I’ll wash your feet and drink the water,’ she cried at last. Ovdotya was her name.”
