CHAPTER VI.
THE JUDGES.
The president, who had to take the chair, had arrived early. The
president was a tall, stout man, with long grey whiskers. Though
married, he led a very loose life, and his wife did the same, so
they did not stand in each other's way. This morning he had
received a note from a Swiss girl, who had formerly been a
governess in his house, and who was now on her way from South
Russia to St. Petersburg. She wrote that she would wait for him
between five and six p.m. in the Hotel Italia. This made him wish
to begin and get through the sitting as soon as possible, so as
to have time to call before six p.m. on the little red-haired
Clara Vasilievna, with whom he had begun a romance in the country
last summer. He went into a private room, latched the door, took
a pair of dumb-bells out of a cupboard, moved his arms 20 times
upwards, downwards, forwards, and sideways, then holding the
dumb-bells above his head, lightly bent his knees three times.
"Nothing keeps one going like a cold bath and exercise," he said,
feeling the biceps of his right arm with his left hand, on the
third finger of which he wore a gold ring. He had still to do the
moulinee movement (for he always went through those two exercises
before a long sitting), when there was a pull at the door. The
president quickly put away the dumb-bells and opened the door,
saying, "I beg your pardon."
One of the members, a high-shouldered, discontented-looking man,
with gold spectacles, came into the room. "Matthew Nikitich has
again not come," he said, in a dissatisfied tone.
"Not yet?" said the president, putting on his uniform. "He is
always late."
"It is extraordinary. He ought to be ashamed of himself," said
the member, angrily, and taking out a cigarette.
This member, a very precise man, had had an unpleasant encounter
with his wife in the morning, because she had spent her allowance
before the end of the month, and had asked him to give her some
money in advance, but he would not give way to her, and they had
a quarrel. The wife told him that if he were going to behave so,
he need not expect any dinner; there would be no dinner for him
at home. At this point he left, fearing that she might carry out
her threat, for anything might be expected from her. "This comes
of living a good, moral life," he thought, looking at the
beaming, healthy, cheerful, and kindly president, who, with
elbows far apart, was smoothing his thick grey whiskers with his
fine white hands over the embroidered collar of his uniform. "He
is always contented and merry while I am suffering."
The secretary came in and brought some document.
"Thanks, very much," said the president, lighting a cigarette.
"Which case shall we take first, then?"
"The poisoning case, I should say," answered the secretary, with
indifference.
"All right; the poisoning case let it be," said the president,
thinking that he could get this case over by four o'clock, and
then go away. "And Matthew Nikitich; has he come?"
"Not yet."
"And Breve?"
"He is here," replied the secretary.
"Then if you see him, please tell him that we begin with the
poisoning case." Breve was the public prosecutor, who was to read
the indictment in this case.
In the corridor the secretary met Breve, who, with up lifted
shoulders, a portfolio under one arm, the other swinging with the
palm turned to the front, was hurrying along the corridor,
clattering with his heels.
"Michael Petrovitch wants to know if you are ready? the secretary
asked.
"Of course; I am always ready," said the public prosecutor. "What
are we taking first?
"The poisoning case."
"That's quite right," said the public prosecutor, but did not
think it at all right. He had spent the night in a hotel playing
cards with a friend who was giving a farewell party. Up to five
in the morning they played and drank, so he had no time to look
at this poisoning case, and meant to run it through now. The
secretary, happening to know this, advised the president to begin
with the poisoning case. The secretary was a Liberal, even a
Radical, in opinion.
Breve was a Conservative; the secretary disliked him, and envied
him his position.
"Well, and how about the Skoptzy?" [a religious sect] asked the
secretary.
"I have already said that I cannot do it without witnesses, and
so I shall say to the Court."
"Dear me, what does it matter?"
"I cannot do it," said Breve; and, waving his arm, he ran into
his private room.
He was putting off the case of the Skoptzy on account of the
absence of a very unimportant witness, his real reason being that
if they were tried by an educated jury they might possibly be
acquitted.
By an agreement with the president this case was to be tried in
the coming session at a provincial town, where there would be
more peasants, and, therefore, more chances of conviction.
The movement in the corridor increased. The people crowded most
at the doors of the Civil Court, in which the case that the
dignified man talked about was being heard.
An interval in the proceeding occurred, and the old woman came
out of the court, whose property that genius of an advocate had
found means of getting for his client, a person versed in law who
had no right to it whatever. The judges knew all about the case,
and the advocate and his client knew it better still, but the
move they had invented was such that it was impossible not to
take the old woman's property and not to hand it over to the
person versed in law.
The old woman was stout, well dressed, and had enormous flowers
on her bonnet; she stopped as she came out of the door, and
spreading out her short fat arms and turning to her advocate, she
kept repeating. "What does it all mean? just fancy!"
The advocate was looking at the flowers in her bonnet, and
evidently not listening to her, but considering some question or
other.
Next to the old woman, out of the door of the Civil Court, his
broad, starched shirt front glistening from under his low-cut
waistcoat, with a self-satisfied look on his face, came the
celebrated advocate who had managed to arrange matters so that
the old woman lost all she had, and the person versed in the law
received more than 100,000 roubles. The advocate passed close to
the old woman, and, feeling all eyes directed towards him, his
whole bearing seemed to say: "No expressions of deference are
required."
