Collected Shorter Fiction, Volume 2

However tearfully Ivan Mironov begged Yevgeny Mikhailovich to acknowledge that the coupon was his, and the yardman to confirm what he was saying, both Yevgeny Mikhailovich and the yardman stuck to their line: they had never bought firewood off carts. And the policeman took Ivan Mironov back to the police station where he was charged with forging a coupon.

Only by following the advice of his cellmate, a drunken clerk, and by slipping the local police officer a five-rouble note, did Ivan Mironov succeed in getting out of detention, minus his coupon and with just seven roubles instead of the twenty-five he had had the day before. Ivan Mironov used three of the seven roubles to get drunk, and with a face full of utter dejection and dead drunk he drove home to his wife.

His wife was pregnant and nearing her time, and she was feeling ill. She began swearing at her husband, he shoved her away, and she started hitting him. He did not retaliate, but lay belly down on the plank bed and wept loudly.

Only the next morning did his wife discover what had happened, and believing what her husband said, spent a long time cursing that brigand of a gentleman who had deceived her Ivan. And Ivan, who had now sobered up, remembered the advice of the factory-hand he had been drinking with the previous evening, and decided to go and find an ablocate and lodge a complaint.

VIII

The advocate took on the case, not so much for any money he might make from it, but rather because he believed Ivan Mironov and was indignant at the way this muzhik had been so shamelessly defrauded.

Both parties were present at the hearing, and Vasily the yardman was the sole witness. At the hearing it all came out as it had done before. Ivan Mironov referred to God and to the fact that we shall all die. Yevgeny Mikhailovich, although uncomfortably aware of the unpleasantness and the danger of what he was doing, could not now alter his testimony, and he continued with an outwardly calm appearance to deny everything.

Vasily the yardman received a further ten roubles and went on asserting with a calm smile that he had never before so much as set eyes on Ivan Mironov. And when he was called to take the oath, although he quailed inwardly, he maintained a calm exterior as he repeated the words of the oath after the old priest specially brought in for this function, swearing on the cross and the Holy Gospel that he would tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

The proceedings ended with the judge dismissing the case brought by Ivan Mironov and decreeing that he was liable for court costs of five roubles, which Yevgeny Mikhailovich magnanimously paid on his behalf. Discharging Ivan Mironov, the judge admonished him to be more careful in future about making accusations against respectable people and said that he should be duly grateful that the court costs had been met for him and that he was not being prosecuted for slander, which could have led to his spending three months or more in prison.

‘We humbly thank you, sir,’ said Ivan Mironov, and shaking his head and sighing he left the courtroom.

It seemed as if the whole affair had ended well for Yevgeny Mikhailovich and for Vasily the yardman. But that was only how it looked. Something had actually happened which no one could see, something far more serious than anything merely human eyes could perceive.