“What do you want of me then?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“Well, I thought you called me forward.”
“You may go,” interrupted Shubenski.
“Permit me,” I said, “as I am here, to remind you that you, Colonel, said to me on my last appearance before the Commission, that no one charged me with complicity in the students’ party; but now the sentence says that I am one of those punished on that account. There is some mistake here.”
“Do you mean to protest against the imperial decision?” cried out Shubenski. “If you are not careful, young man, something worse may be substituted for Perm. I shall order your words to be taken down.”
“Just what I meant to ask. The sentence says ‘according to the report of the Commission’: well, my protest is not against the imperial edict but against your report. I call the Prince to witness, that I was never even questioned about the party or the songs sung there.”
Shubenski turned pale with rage. “You pretend not to know,” he said, “that your guilt is ten times greater than that of those who attended the party.” He pointed to one of the pardoned men: “There is a man who sang an objectionable song under the influence of drink; but he afterwards begged forgiveness on his knees with tears. You are still far enough from any repentance.”
“Excuse me,” I went on; “the depth of my guilt is not the question. But if I am a murderer, I don’t want to pass for a thief. I don’t want people to say, even by way of defence, that I did so-and-so under the influence of drink.”
“If my son, my own son, were as brazen as you, I should myself ask the Tsar to banish him to Siberia.”