Aksénof’s wife was dumfounded by the event, and did not know what to think. Her children were still small, and there was one at the breast. She took them all with her and journeyed to the city where her husband was imprisoned.
At first they would not grant her admittance, but afterward she got permission from the chief, and was taken to her husband.
When she saw him in his prison garb, in chains together with murderers, she fell to the floor, and it was a long time before she recovered from her swoon. Then she placed her children around her, sat down amid them, and began to tell him about their domestic affairs, and to ask him about everything that had happened to him.
He told her the whole story.
She asked: “What is to be the result of it?”
He said: “We must petition the Czar. It is impossible that an innocent man should be condemned.”
The wife said that she had already sent in a petition to the Czar, but that the petition had not been granted. Aksénof said nothing, but was evidently very much downcast.
Then his wife said: “You see the dream that I had, when I dreamed that you had become gray-headed, meant something, after all. Already your hair has begun to turn gray with trouble. You ought to have stayed at home that time.”
And she began to tear her hair, and she said: “Vanya,[5] my dearest husband, tell your wife the truth: Did you commit that crime or not?”
Aksénof said: “So you, too, have no faith in me!” And he wrung his hands and wept.