not come to again. Afterwards she placed all her children around her, sat a good bit with him and told him of home affairs, and asked him concerning everything that had befallen him. He told her everything. Then said she,
"What's to be done now?"
"We must appeal to the Tsar," said he. "Surely they will not be suffered to destroy the innocent."
"His wife said she had already sent in a petition to the Tsar, but that the petition had not reached him: Aksenov said nothing, he only hung his head more than ever.
Then his wife said: "Thou dost see now that my vision of thee and thy hair growing grey was no idle tale. Already now thou art beginning to grow grey from grief. I could not drum it into thee then!"
And she began to stroke his hair, and said, "Vanya![1] my own darling, tell thy wife didst thou not do this thing?"
"What! Dost thou think this of me also?" cried Ivan—and he folded his arms and wept.
Then a soldier came and said that the wife and children must go. And Aksenov took leave of his family for the last time.
When his wife had gone, Aksenov began to recollect what they had said. When he began to reflect that his wife also thought the same thing of him, and asked him whether he hadn't killed the merchant, he thought to himself, "'Tis plain that none save God can know the truth; to Him alone must I
- ↑ Short of "Ivan."
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