In The Court

Anton Chekhov

AT the district town of N. in the cinnamon-coloured government house in which the

Zemstvo, the sessional meetings of the justices of the peace, the Rural Board, the Liquor

Board, the Military Board, and many others sit by turns, the Circuit Court was in session on

one of the dull days of autumn. Of the above-mentioned cinnamon-coloured house a local

official had wittily observed:

"Here is Justitia, here is Policia, here is Militia -- a regular boarding school of high-born

young ladies."

But, as the saying is, "Too many cooks spoil the broth," and probably that is why the house

keeps sleepless vigil as though it could not escape from burdensome memories of past

unforgiven sins. Inside it is like a barn and extremely unattractive. It is strange to see how

readily these elegant lawyers, members of committees, and marshals of nobility, who in

their own homes will make a scene over the slightest fume from the stove, or stain on the

floor, resign themselves here to whirring ventilation wheels, the disgusting smell of

fumigating candles, and the filthy, forever perspiring walls.

The sitting of the circuit court began between nine and ten. The programme of the day was

promptly entered upon, with noticeable haste. The cases came on one after another and

ended quickly, like a church service without a choir, so that no mind could form a complete

picture of all this parti-coloured mass of faces, movements, words, misfortunes, true

composition of the court remained the same as it had been for the preceding case, except

that the place of the defending counsel was filled by a new personage, a beardless young

graduate in a coat with bright buttons. The president gave the order -- "Bring in the

prisoner!"

But the prisoner, who had been got ready beforehand, was already walking to his bench. He

was a tall, thick-set peasant of about fifty-five, completely bald, with an apathetic, hairy

face and a big red beard. He was followed by a frail-looking little soldier with a gun.

Just as he was reaching the bench the escort had a trifling mishap. He stumbled and

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dropped the gun out of his hands, but caught it at once before it touched the ground,

knocking his knee violently against the butt end as he did so. A faint laugh was audible in

the audience. Either from the pain or perhaps from shame at his awkwardness the soldier

flushed a dark red.

After the customary questions to the prisoner, the shuffling of the jury, the calling over and

swearing in of the witnesses, the reading of the charge began. The narrow-chested, pale-

armchair without stirring and held his open hand near his brow as though screening his eyes

from the sun. To the droning of the ventilation wheel and the secretary he meditated. When

the secretary paused for an instant to take breath on beginning a new page, he suddenly

started and looked round at the court with lustreless eyes, then bent down to the ear of the

judge next to him and asked with a sigh:

"Are you putting up at Demyanov's, Matvey Petrovitch?"

"Yes, at Demyanov's," answered the other, starting too.

"Next time I shall probably put up there too. It's really impossible to put up at Tipyakov's!

There's noise and uproar all night! Knocking, coughing, children crying. . . . It's

impossible!"

mused with his head on one side. . . . His youthful face expressed nothing but the frigid,

immovable boredom which is commonly seen on the face of schoolboys and men on duty

who are forced from day to day to sit in the same place, to see the same faces, the same

walls. He felt no excitement about the speech he was to make, and indeed what did that

speech amount to? On instructions from his superiors in accordance with long-established

routine he would fire it off before the jurymen, without passion or ardour, feeling that it was

colourless and boring, and then -- gallop through the mud and the rain to the station, thence

to the town, shortly to receive instructions to go off again to some district to deliver another

speech. . . . It was a bore!

At first the prisoner turned pale and coughed nervously into his sleeve, but soon the

effect on him. What he met here was not at all what he could have expected. The charge of

murder hung over him, and yet here he met with neither threatening faces nor indignant

looks nor loud phrases about retribution nor sympathy for his extraordinary fate; not one of

those who were judging him looked at him with interest or for long. . . . The dingy windows

official indifference and produced an atmosphere of frigidity, as though the murderer were

simply an official property, or as though he were not being judged by living men, but by

die of despair -- it would all be shattered against blunted nerves and the callousness of

custom, like waves against a rock.

When the secretary finished, the president for some reason passed his hands over the table

before him, looked for some time with his eyes screwed up towards the prisoner, and then

asked, speaking languidly:

"Prisoner at the bar, do you plead guilty to having murdered your wife on the evening of the

ninth of June?"

"No, sir," answered the prisoner, getting up and holding his gown over his chest.

After this the court proceeded hurriedly to the examination of witnesses. Two peasant

women and five men and the village policeman who had made the enquiry were questioned.

ran all over the village, looking for him. They went to all the pothouses and huts, but could

not find him. He had disappeared, and two days later came of his own accord to the police

office, pale, with his clothes torn, trembling all over. He was bound and put in the lock-up.

"Prisoner," said the president, addressing Harlamov, "cannot you explain to the court where

you were during the three days following the murder?"

"I was wandering about the fields. . . . Neither eating nor drinking. . . ."

"Why did you hide yourself, if it was not you that committed the murder?

The last to be examined was the district doctor who had made a post-mortem on the old

woman. He told the court all that he remembered of his report at the post-mortem and all

that he had succeeded in thinking of on his way to the court that morning. The president

screwed up his eyes at his new glossy black suit, at his foppish cravat, at his moving lips; he

"Everyone wears a short jacket nowadays, why has he had his made long? Why long and

brother was not examined, the village elder was not examined, there's no making anything

out of his description of the hut. . . ."

"It can't be helped, it can't be helped," said the president, sinking back in his chair. "He's a

wreck . . . dropping to bits!"

"By the way," whispered the assistant prosecutor, "look at the audience, in the front row, the

third from the right . . . a face like an actor's . . . that's the local Croesus. He has a fortune of

something like fifty thousand."

"Really? You wouldn't guess it from his appearance. . . . Well, dear boy, shouldn't we have

a break?"

"We will finish the case for the prosecution, and then. . . ."

When the doctor had finished, the president gazed into the space between the prosecutor

and the counsel for the defence and suggested:

"Have you any questions to ask?"

The assistant prosecutor shook his head negatively, without lifting his eyes from "Cain"; the

counsel for the defence unexpectedly stirred and, clearing his throat, asked:

"Tell me, doctor, can you from the dimensions of the wound form any theory as to . . . as to

the mental condition of the criminal? That is, I mean, does the extent of the injury justify

the supposition that the accused was suffering from temporary aberration?"

"Perhaps," the doctor hesitated, "if one considers the force with which . . . er--er--er . . . the

criminal strikes the blow. . . . However, excuse me, I don't quite understand your question. .

. ."

The counsel for the defence did not get an answer to his question, and indeed he did not feel

the necessity of one. It was clear even to himself that that question had strayed into his mind

"Three days before my old woman's death Penkov bled his horse. I was there; I was helping

to be sure, and . . . and got smeared with it. . . ."

"But Penkov has just given evidence that he does not remember that you were present at the

bleeding. . . ."

"I can't tell about that."

"Sit down."

They proceeded to examine the axe with which the old woman had been murdered.

"That's not my axe," the prisoner declared.

"I can't say about that, but I swear before God (Harlamov held out his hand before him and

spread out the fingers), before the living God. And I don't remember how long it is since I

did have an axe of my own. I did have one like that only a bit smaller, but my son Prohor

lost it. Two years before he went into the army, he drove off to fetch wood, got drinking

with the fellows, and lost it. . . ."

"Good, sit down."

This systematic distrust and disinclination to hear him probably irritated and offended

Harlamov. He blinked and red patches came out on his cheekbones.

It was a painful moment! Everyone seemed to wince and as it were shrink together. The

same fearful, incredible thought flashed like lightning through every head in the court, the

thought of possibly fatal coincidence, and not one person in the court dared to look at the

"Prisoner, conversation with the guards is forbidden . . ." the president made haste to say.

their work. . . .

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