“They shut a man up and they don’t know themselves what for.  He was drunk, your honour, did not know what he was doing, and even hit father on the ear and scratched his own cheek on a branch, and two of our fellows-they wanted some Turkish tobacco, you see-began telling him to go with them and break into the Armenian’s shop at night for tobacco.  Being drunk, he obeyed them, the fool.  They broke the lock, you know, got in, and did no end of mischief; they turned everything upside down, broke the windows, and scattered the flour about.  They were drunk, that is all one can say!  Well, the constable turned up . . . and with one thing and another they took them off to the magistrate.  They have been a whole year in prison, and a week ago, on the Wednesday, they were all three tried in the town.  A soldier stood behind them with a gun . . . people were sworn in.  Vaska was less to blame than any, but the gentry decided that he was the ringleader.  The other two lads were sent to prison, but Vaska to a convict battalion for three years.  And what for?  One should judge like a Christian!”

“I have nothing to do with it, I tell you again.  Go to the authorities.”

“I have been already!  I’ve been to the court; I have tried to send in a petition—­they wouldn’t take a petition; I have been to the police captain, and I have been to the examining magistrate, and everyone says, ‘It is not my business!’ Whose business is it, then?  But there is no one above you here in the hospital; you do what you like, your honour.”

“You simpleton,” sighed the doctor, “once the jury have found him guilty, not the governor, not even the minister, could do anything, let alone the police captain.  It’s no good your trying to do anything!”

“And who judged him, then?”

“The gentlemen of the jury. . . .”

“They weren’t gentlemen, they were our peasants!  Andrey Guryev was one; Aloshka Huk was one.”

“Well, I am cold talking to you. . . .”

The doctor waved his hand and walked quickly to his own door.  Kirila was on the point of following him, but, seeing the door slam, he stopped.

For ten minutes he stood motionless in the middle of the hospital yard, and without putting on his cap stared at the doctor’s house, then he heaved a deep sigh, slowly scratched himself, and walked towards the gate.

“To whom am I to go?” he muttered as he came out on to the road.  “One says it is not his business, another says it is not his business.  Whose business is it, then?  No, till you grease their hands you will get nothing out of them.  The doctor says that, but he keeps looking all the while at my fist to see whether I am going to give him a blue note.  Well, brother, I’ll go, if it has to be to the governor.”