Doctor Zhivago - Boris Pasternak [197]
In this place on a cold, gray morning the death sentence was carried out on the eleven men found guilty of the conspiracy and the two moonshining orderlies.
Some twenty men from among the partisans most loyal to the revolution, with a core of special guards from headquarters, brought them here. The convoy closed in on the condemned men in a semicircle and, pointing their rifles, at a quick, close-packed pace, pushed them, drove them into the rocky corner of the platform, from which they had no way out except to leap into the abyss.
The interrogations, the long imprisonment, and the humiliations they had been subjected to had deprived them of their human image. They were shaggy, blackened, exhausted, and frightful as ghosts.
They had been disarmed at the very beginning of the investigation. It did not occur to anyone to search them a second time before the execution. That seemed like an unnecessary meanness, a mockery of people in the face of death.
Suddenly Rzhanitsky, a friend of Vdovichenko’s, who was walking beside him and, like him, was an old ideological anarchist, fired three times at the line of the convoy, aiming at Sivobluy. Rzhanitsky was an excellent shot, but his hand shook from agitation and he missed. Again the same delicacy and pity for their former comrades kept the guards from falling upon Rzhanitsky or responding to his attempt by shooting ahead of time, before the general command. Rzhanitsky had three unspent shots left, but in his excitement, perhaps forgetting about them and vexed at having missed, he hurled his Browning against the stones. The blow fired off the Browning a fourth time, wounding the condemned Pachkolia in the foot.
The orderly Pachkolia cried out, clutched his foot, and fell, uttering quick shrieks of pain. Pafnutkin and Gorazdykh, who were nearest to him, picked him up, held him under the arms, and dragged him, so that he would not be trampled by his alarmed comrades, because they no longer knew what they were doing. Pachkolia went towards the stony edge, where the condemned men were being crowded, hopping, limping, unable to step on his wounded foot, and kept crying out. His inhuman howls were infectious. As if on signal, they all lost control of themselves. Something unimaginable began. Swearing poured out, prayers and entreaties were heard, curses resounded.
The adolescent Galuzin, throwing from his head the yellow-braided high school cap he was still wearing, sank to his knees and like that, without getting up from them, crept backwards in the crowd towards the frightful stones. He bowed quickly to the ground in front of the convoy, cried and sobbed, pleading with them half unconsciously, in singsong:
“I’m guilty, brothers, have mercy on me, I won’t do it again. Don’t destroy me. Don’t kill me. I haven’t lived yet, I’m too young to die. I want to go on living, I want to see mama, my mama, one more time. Forgive me, brothers, have mercy. I’ll kiss your feet. I’ll carry water for you on my back. Ah, terrible, terrible—mama, mama, I’m lost.”
From the midst someone wailed, no one could see who:
“Dear, good comrades! How can it be? Come to your senses. We’ve shed blood together in two wars. We stood, we fought for the same cause. Have pity, let us go. We’ll never forget your kindness, we’ll earn it, we’ll prove it in action. Are you deaf that you don’t answer? Aren’t you Christians?”
To Sivobluy they shouted:
“Ah, you Judas, you Christ-seller! What sort of traitors are we compared to you? May you be throttled yourself, you dog, you three-time traitor! You swore an oath to your tsar and you killed