The Seven Who Were Hanged | Page 7

sky without caressing kindness or joyous
recollections-she looked at it simply because in all the filthy, official
hall the blue bit of sky was the most beautiful, the purest, the most
truthful object, and the only one that did not try to search hidden depths
in her eyes.
The judges pitied Sergey Golovin; her they despised.
Her neighbor, known only by the name of Werner, sat also motionless,
in a somewhat affected pose, his hands folded between his knees. If a
face may be said to look like a false door, this unknown man closed his
face like an iron door and bolted it with an iron lock. He stared
motionlessly at the dirty wooden floor, and it was impossible to tell
whether he was calm or whether he was intensely agitated, whether he
was thinking of something, or whether he was listening to the
testimony of the detectives as presented to the court. He was not tall in
stature. His features were refined and delicate. Tender and handsome,
so that he reminded you of a moonlit night in the South near the
seashore, where the cypress trees throw their dark shadows, he at the
same time gave the impression of tremendous, calm power, of
invincible firmness, of cold and audacious courage. The very politeness
with which he gave brief and precise answers seemed dangerous, on his
lips, in his half bow. And if the prison garb looked upon the others like
the ridiculous costume of a buffoon, upon him it was not noticeable, so
foreign was it to his personality. And although the other terrorists had
been seized with bombs and infernal machines upon them, and Werner
had had but a black revolver, the judges for some reason regarded him
as the leader of the others and treated him with a certain deference,
although succinctly and in a business-like manner.
The next man, Vasily Kashirin, was torn between a terrible, dominating

fear of death and a desperate desire to restrain the fear and not betray it
to the judges. From early morning, from the time they had been led into
court, he had been suffocating from an intolerable palpitation of his
heart. Perspiration came out in drops all along his forehead; his hands
were also perspiring and cold, and his cold, sweat-covered shirt clung
to his body, interfering with the freedom of his movements. With a
supernatural effort of will-power he forced his fingers not to tremble,
his voice to be firm and distinct, his eyes to be calm. He saw nothing
about him; the voices came to him as through a mist, and it was to this
mist that he made his desperate efforts to answer firmly, to answer
loudly. But having answered, he immediately forgot question as well as
answer, and was again struggling with himself silently and terribly.
Death was disclosed in him so clearly that the judges avoided looking
at him. It was hard to define his age, as is the case with a corpse which
has begun to decompose. According to his passport, he was only
twenty-three years old. Once or twice Werner quietly touched his knee
with his hand, and each time Kashirin spoke shortly:
"Nevermind!"
The most terrible sensation was when he was suddenly seized with an
insufferable desire to cry out, without words, the desperate cry of a
beast. He touched Werner quickly, and Werner, without lifting his eyes,
said softly:
"Never mind, Vasya. It will soon be over."
And embracing them all with a motherly, anxious look, the fifth
terrorist, Tanya Kovalchuk, was faint with alarm. She had never had
any children; she was still young and red-cheeked, just as Sergey
Golovin, but she seemed as a mother to all of them: so full of anxiety,
of boundless love were her looks, her smiles, her sighs. She paid not
the slightest attention to the trial, regarding it as though it were
something entirely irrelevant, and she listened only to the manner in
which the others were answering the questions, to hear whether the
voice was trembling, whether there was fear, whether it was necessary
to give water to any one.

She could not look at Vasya in her anguish and only wrung her fingers
silently. At Musya and Werner she gazed proudly and respectfully, and
she assumed a serious and concentrated expression, and then tried to
transfer her smile to Sergey Golovin.
"The dear boy is looking at the sky. Look, look, my darling!" she
thought about Golovin.
"And Vasya! What is it? My God, my God! What am I to do with him?
If I should speak to him I might make it still worse. He might suddenly
start to cry."
So like a calm pond at dawn, reflecting every hastening, passing cloud,
she reflected upon her full, gentle, kind face