Forty Stories - Anton Chekhov [46]
“How do you suppose train wrecks happen? Doesn’t it occur to you that if a few nuts are unscrewed, you can have a train wreck?”
Denis smirked and screwed up his eyes incredulously at the magistrate.
“Why, Your Honor, we peasants have been unscrewing nuts for a good many years now, and the good Lord has protected us, and as for a train wreck and killing people, why, nothing at all.… Now, if I took up a whole rail or put a big balk of timber across the track, maybe I could smash up a train.… But just an ordinary nut, pfui!…”
“Can you get it into your head that the nut holds the rail to the tie?”
“Of course, Your Honor. We understand that. That’s why we don’t unscrew all of them. We leave some of them. We’ve got heads on our shoulders.… We know what’s what.…”
Denis yawned and made the sign of the cross over his mouth.
“Last year a train went off the rails here,” the magistrate said. “Now we know how it happened.”
“Beg pardon?”
“I said, now we know why the train went off the rails last year. It’s all clear now.”
“Good kind gentlemen, God gave you understanding, and He gives it to whom He pleases. You know about things, how it happened, what happened, and all, but the linesman, he was a peasant, too, not a man with an education, and he took me by the collar and carted me off! He ought to know about things before dragging people off! A peasant has the brains of a peasant—that’s what they say. And write down, too, Your Honor, that he hit me twice—once in the jaw and once in the chest.”
“Listen, when they searched your place, they found another nut.… Now, where and when was that one unscrewed?”
“You mean the one they found under the little red chest?”
“I don’t know anything about where it was. I only know they found it. When did you unscrew that one?”
“I didn’t unscrew it. It was given to me by Ignashka, the son of one-eyed Semyon. I’m talking about the one under the chest. The one they found in the yard, on the sleigh—that one was unscrewed by Mitrofan and me.”
“Which Mitrofan?”
“Mitrofan Petrov. Do you mean to say you’ve never heard of him? He’s the one who makes nets in our village and sells them to the gentry. He needs a lot of nuts. Every net, I reckon, must have about ten nuts.”
“Listen. According to Article 1081 of the Penal Code, every willful act leading to the damage of a railroad and calculated to jeopardize the passage of trains, shall, if the perpetrator knows the act will cause an accident—knows, you understand?—and for that matter you couldn’t help knowing the consequences of unscrewing the nut—such a man is liable to exile with hard labor.…”
“Oh, well, you know best. We ignorant people, we don’t know anything.…”
“You do know! You’re lying and shamming ignorance!”
“Why should I lie? Ask in the village if you don’t believe me! Only the bleak fish can be caught without a sinker, that’s true! There’s no fish worse than a gudgeon, and even he won’t bite without a sinker.”
“You’ll be talking about snappers next,” the magistrate smiled.
“I told you, we don’t have snappers in our part of the country.… Now, if we cast our lines on the surface without a sinker, with a butterfly for bait, we might maybe catch a mullet, but it don’t happen often.”
“Shut up!”
Then there was silence, while Denis shifted from one foot to the other, stared at the table covered with a green cloth, and violently blinked his eyes. He was like someone gazing, not at the green cloth, but at the sun. The magistrate was writing rapidly.
“May I be getting along now?” Denis asked a moment later.
“No, you’ll be kept in custody and sent to prison.”
Denis stopped blinking. Raising his thick eyebrows, he looked inquiringly in the direction of the magistrate.
“What do you mean, prison? Your Honor, I haven’t the time for prison! I’ve got to go to the fair—there’s Yegor, who owes me three rubles for the lard he …”
“Keep your mouth shut, and don’t disturb me!”
“Prison,