he thought.  Stepan was only sentenced to one year’s imprisonment, which was a mild punishment for what he had done.  His peasant’s dress was taken away from him and put in the prison stores, and he had a prison suit and felt boots given to him instead.  Stepan had never had much respect for the authorities, but now he became quite convinced that all the chiefs, all the fine folk, all except the Czar—­who alone had pity on the peasants and was just—­all were robbers who suck blood out of the people.  All he heard from the deported convicts, and those sentenced to hard labour, with whom he had made friends in prisons, confirmed him in his views.  One man had been sentenced to hard labour for having convicted his superiors of a theft; another for having struck an official who had unjustly confiscated the property of a peasant; a third because he forged bank notes.  The well-to-do-people, the merchants, might do whatever they chose and come to no harm; but a poor peasant, for a trumpery reason or for none at all, was sent to prison to become food for vermin.

He had visits from his wife while in prison.  Her life without him was miserable enough, when, to make it worse, her cottage was destroyed by fire.  She was completely ruined, and had to take to begging with her children.  His wife’s misery embittered Stepan still more.  He got on very badly with all the people in the prison; was rude to every one; and one day he nearly killed the cook with an axe, and therefore got an additional year in prison.  In the course of that year he received the news that his wife was dead, and that he had no longer a home.

When Stepan had finished his time in prison, he was taken to the prison stores, and his own dress was taken down from the shelf and handed to him.

“Where am I to go now?” he asked the prison officer, putting on his old dress.

“Why, home.”

“I have no home.  I shall have to go on the road.  Robbery will not be a pleasant occupation.”

“In that case you will soon be back here.”

“I am not so sure of that.”

And Stepan left the prison.  Nevertheless he took the road to his own place.  He had nowhere else to turn.

On his way he stopped for a night’s rest in an inn that had a public bar attached to it.  The inn was kept by a fat man from the town, Vladimir, and he knew Stepan.  He knew that Stepan had been put into prison through ill luck, and did not mind giving him shelter for the night.  He was a rich man, and had persuaded his neighbour’s wife to leave her husband and come to live with him.  She lived in his house as his wife, and helped him in his business as well.