Once they brought some new prisoners to the prison. In the evening the old prisoners gathered around the new men, and asked them from what town they came, or from what village, and for what acts they had been sent up. Aksénov, too, sat down on the bed-boards near the new prisoners and, lowering his head, listened to what they were saying. One of the new prisoners was a tall, sound-looking old man of about sixty years of age, with a gray, clipped beard. He was telling them what he had been sent up for:
"Yes, brothers, I have come here for no crime at all. I had unhitched a driver's horse from the sleigh. I was caught. They said, 'You stole it.' And I said, 'I only wanted to get home quickly, for I let the horse go. Besides, the driver is a friend of mine. I am telling you the truth.'—'No,' they said, 'you have stolen it.' But they did not know what I had been stealing, or where I had been stealing. There were crimes for which I ought to have been sent up long ago, but they could not convict me, and now I am here contrary to the law. 'You are lying,—you have been in Siberia, but you did not make a long visit there—'"
"Where do you come from?" asked one of the prisoners.
"I am from the city of Vladímir, a burgher of that place. My name is Makár, and by my father Seménovich."
Aksénov raised his head, and asked:
"Seménovich, have you not heard in Vladímir about the family of Merchant Aksénov? Are they alive?"
"Yes, I have heard about them! They are rich merchants, even though their father is in Siberia. He is as much a sinner as I, I think. And you, grandfather, what are you here for?"
Aksénov did not like to talk of his misfortune. He sighed, and said:
"For my sins have I passed twenty-six years at hard labour."
Makár Seménovich said: