The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-09-17

I heard only complaint.
"It--it was not-fair-how could he go-without
saying goodbye-to me?"
Then Aloshenka grew silent and was silent long
time, for whole weeks and even stopped playing
chess. He did not sleep whole nights. Marin's exc
cution must have reminded him of his own fate,
just horrible and merciless. He had been here
seven months already, awaiting death, and it was
near six months that I had been bearing my punish
ment for resenting an insult.
And so one day jailer comes to the cell, looks
for me in the gloom with his eyes.
"The governor wants to you in the office"
1, 60 Our footsteps echo holloway in the grey
and empty corridors, the rusty door-hinges squeak
protestingly. In the office, the other time the
gloomy governor sits bent heap of papers and
makes me wait just as long by the door. Then he
says sternly:
''Well, now you have served your punishment. You
may return to the CELL"
He lifts his head and looks at me as attentively
as though he wanted to ask something impor-
tant-and could not
And here I felt that he was a man.
81 can't, sir" say "leave where 1 am"
The governor moved in his chair though he
going to spring up, then his head sank as
though he bowling and he moved his hand
slightly as though to say, every well. Co."
And again was with Aloshenka who, may say
met me with eyes eXpectant if he had been
awaiting not me but his pardon. And when he I'M
derstood that not to leave him, became talka-
tive again, and then and there we sat down to our
chess.
l stay there with Aloshenka another month and
another; else brought in, thank Sod.
Most of the time we talk about how hard it must
be for his mother to do much in st. Petersburg
because she has not enough money to bride the
necessary people Aloshenka's father had been a
doctor, of small practice suppose, and did not earn
much most of his patient being poor laborers and
clerks
"Wel, somehow other" I say ''she is sure to
get pardon"
And he, to reassure not himself but me, assents
with tired smile.
'She is sure to get it. My little mother is very
insstent. She'll go to the minister himself"
She may be insistent but now Aloshenka did not
go to sleep till almost three And often noticed
that he pretended to be asleep to quiet and too
would pretend to sleep. We not allowed to put
the lights out for the night and we usually slept
together, face to face, in one bunk, and so ! open
eye to if Aloshenka is sleeping and there is
of his eyes slightly opened. He is watching
me too Once when caught each other at our
trick, all at it seemed funny that we did
not sleep till morning, even sat down to chess and
played right up to roll call and then began break
fast. And so we didn't sleep all night. But all this
was nothing, From that very night there began in
both OF US that disease they call insomnia We could
not have slept if our eyes sewn up. Great God
grew thin in week, like living skeletons eat
could not, noses grew sharp, eyes like coal
became delirious began to see all sorts of nasty
visions, like sometimes would hear them coming
and could even hear the doors squeaking the locks
clashng hear the rattle of locks, voices, Aloshen-
ka's name called, and once we both heard clearly,
1--WE might well hang Michael Vanitch too"
Yes things began to go wrong with us. And So
at this unlucky time, about two o'clock in the
morning, when Aloshenka and l were playing chess
playing that he moved both his men and mine
and too, the game seemed to drag neither could
win-and they came.
They came. came with the strait jacket, thought
he would resist because he young, only seven
teen, was not prepared to die perhaps-well, and
so they decided to prepare him themselves. But he
was ready, and /, | might say, with him. Il can't
remember it all And the strangest part was he
went to death gladly, he in it the end of his suf
ferings and, perhaps, wished to rid me of mine
even the jailers surprised. Only he fingered
a moment on my breast and his face was so white
and his blue eyes burned with a flame l had never
seen before, the eyes which looked black, deep
and bottomess.