One time some new convicts came to the prison. In the evening all the old convicts gathered around the newcomers, and began to ply them with questions as to the cities or villages from which this one or that had come, and what their crimes were.
At this time Aksénof was sitting on his bunk, near the strangers, and, with bowed head, was listening to what was said.
One of the new convicts was a tall, healthy looking old man of sixty years, with a close-cropped gray beard. He was telling why he had been arrested. He said:
“And so, brothers, I was sent here for nothing. I unharnessed a horse from a postboy’s sledge, and they caught me in it, and insisted that I was stealing it. ‘But,’ says I, ‘I only wanted to go a little faster, so I whipped up the horse. And besides, the driver was a friend of mine. It’s all right,’ says I. ‘No,’ say they; ‘you were stealing it.’ But they did not know what and where I had stolen. I have done things which long ago would have sent me here, but I was not found out; and now they have sent me here without any justice in it. But what’s the use of grumbling? I have been in Siberia before. They did not keep me here very long though—”
“Where did you come from?” asked one of the convicts.
“Well, we came from the city of Vladímir; we are citizens of that place. My name is Makár, and my father’s name was Semyón.”
Aksénof raised his head and asked:
“Tell me, Semyónitch,[7] have you ever heard of the Aksénofs, merchants in Vladímir city? Are they alive?”
“Indeed, I have heard of them! They are rich merchants, though their father is in Siberia. It seems he was just like any of the rest of us sinners. And now tell me, Grandfather, what you were sent here for?”
Aksénof did not like to speak of his misfortune; he sighed, and said: