I needed but to pick up my favourite Russian book, and I came upon him at once. “I have read this book.—PAFNUTENKO.” “The author is a blockhead.” “Mr. Author hasn’t read Karl Marx.” I turn over the pages, and I find his notes in all the margins. Then, of course, no one like he turns down corners and makes dog-ears, tears out pages, or drops grease on them from tallow candles.
Gentlemen, judges, it is hard for me to go on. This man has abused, fouled, vulgarised all that was dear to me, delicate and touching. I struggled a long while with myself. Years went by. My nerves became more irritable I saw there was not room for both of us in the world. One of us had to go.
I foresaw for a long while that it would be just some little trifle that would drive me to the crime. So it was.
You know the particulars. In the compartment there was a crush; the passengers were sitting on one another’s heads. He, with his wife, his son, a schoolboy in the preparatory class, and a pile of luggage, were occupying four seats. Upon this occasion he was wearing the uniform of the Department of Popular Education. I went up to him and asked:
“Is there not a free seat here?”
He answered like a bulldog with a bone, not looking at me:
“No. This seat is taken by another gentleman. These are his things. He’ll be back in a minute.”
The train began to move.
I waited, standing, where I was. We went on about ten miles. The gentleman didn’t come. I was silent, and I looked into the face of the pedagogue, thinking that there might yet be in him some gleam of conscience.
But no. We went another fifteen miles. He got down a basket of provisions and began to eat. He went out with a kettle for hot water, and made himself tea. A little domestic scandal arose over the sugar for the tea.