The Forged Coupon and Other Stories

L >> Leo Tolstoy >> The Forged Coupon and Other Stories


"Damn you!" shouted the soldier, who put one foot a little forward and
stopped, after which, bending his head over his rifle, and raising his
right hand, he rapidly adjusted something, took aim, and, pointing the
gun in the direction of the fugitive, probably fired, although no sound
was heard. "Smokeless powder, no doubt," thought the young Tsar, and
looking after the fleeing man saw him take a few hurried steps, and
bending lower and lower, fall to the ground and crawl on his hands and
knees. At last he remained lying and did not move. The other fugitive,
who was ahead of him, turned round and ran back to the man who was lying
on the ground. He did something for him and then resumed his flight.

"What does all this mean?" asked the Tsar.

"These are the guards on the frontier, enforcing the revenue laws. That
man was killed to protect the revenues of the State."

"Has he actually been killed?"

The guide again laid his hand upon the head of the young Tsar, and again
the Tsar lost consciousness. When he had recovered his senses he found
himself in a small room--the customs office. The dead body of a man,
with a thin grizzled beard, an aquiline nose, and big eyes with the
eyelids closed, was lying on the floor. His arms were thrown asunder,
his feet bare, and his thick, dirty toes were turned up at right angles
and stuck out straight. He had a wound in his side, and on his ragged
cloth jacket, as well as on his blue shirt, were stains of clotted
blood, which had turned black save for a few red spots here and there.
A woman stood close to the wall, so wrapped up in shawls that her face
could scarcely be seen. Motionless she gazed at the aquiline nose, the
upturned feet, and the protruding eyeballs; sobbing and sighing, and
drying her tears at long, regular intervals. A pretty girl of thirteen
was standing at her mother's side, with her eyes and mouth wide open.
A boy of eight clung to his mother's skirt, and looked intensely at his
dead father without blinking.

From a door near them an official, an officer, a doctor, and a clerk
with documents, entered. After them came a soldier, the one who had shot
the man. He stepped briskly along behind his superiors, but the instant
he saw the corpse he went suddenly pale, and quivered; and dropping his
head stood still. When the official asked him whether that was the man
who was escaping across the frontier, and at whom he had fired, he
was unable to answer. His lips trembled, and his face twitched. "The
s--s--s--" he began, but could not get out the words which he wanted to
say. "The same, your excellency." The officials looked at each other and
wrote something down.

"You see the beneficial results of that same system!"

In a room of sumptuous vulgarity two men sat drinking wine. One of them
was old and grey, the other a young Jew. The young Jew was holding a
roll of bank-notes in his hand, and was bargaining with the old man. He
was buying smuggled goods.

"You've got 'em cheap," he said, smiling.

"Yes--but the risk--"

"This is indeed terrible," said the young Tsar; "but it cannot be
avoided. Such proceedings are necessary."

His companion made no response, saying merely, "Let us move on," and
laid his hand again on the head of the Tsar. When the Tsar recovered
consciousness, he was standing in a small room lit by a shaded lamp. A
woman was sitting at the table sewing. A boy of eight was bending over
the table, drawing, with his feet doubled up under him in the armchair.
A student was reading aloud. The father and daughter of the family
entered the room noisily.

"You signed the order concerning the sale of spirits," said the guide to
the Tsar.

"Well?" said the woman.

"He's not likely to live."

"What's the matter with him?"

"They've kept him drunk all the time."

"It's not possible!" exclaimed the wife.

"It's true. And the boy's only nine years old, that Vania Moroshkine."

"What did you do to try to save him?" asked the wife.

"I tried everything that could be done. I gave him an emetic and put a
mustard-plaster on him. He has every symptom of delirium tremens."

"It's no wonder--the whole family are drunkards. Annisia is only a
little better than the rest, and even she is generally more or less
drunk," said the daughter.

"And what about your temperance society?" the student asked his sister.

"What can we do when they are given every opportunity of drinking?
Father tried to have the public-house shut up, but the law is against
him. And, besides, when I was trying to convince Vasily Ermiline that it
was disgraceful to keep a public-house and ruin the people with drink,
he answered very haughtily, and indeed got the better of me before the
crowd: 'But I have a license with the Imperial eagle on it. If there was
anything wrong in my business, the Tsar wouldn't have issued a decree
authorising it.' Isn't it terrible? The whole village has been drunk
for the last three days. And as for feast-days, it is simply horrible to
think of! It has been proved conclusively that alcohol does no good in
any case, but invariably does harm, and it has been demonstrated to be
an absolute poison. Then, ninety-nine per cent. of the crimes in the
world are committed through its influence. We all know how the standard
of morality and the general welfare improved at once in all the
countries where drinking has been suppressed--like Sweden and Finland,
and we know that it can be suppressed by exercising a moral influence
over the masses. But in our country the class which could exert that
influence--the Government, the Tsar and his officials--simply encourage
drink. Their main revenues are drawn from the continual drunkenness of
the people. They drink themselves--they are always drinking the health
of somebody: 'Gentlemen, the Regiment!' The preachers drink, the bishops
drink--"

Again the guide touched the head of the young Tsar, who again lost
consciousness. This time he found himself in a peasant's cottage.
The peasant--a man of forty, with red face and blood-shot eyes--was
furiously striking the face of an old man, who tried in vain to protect
himself from the blows. The younger peasant seized the beard of the old
man and held it fast.

"For shame! To strike your father--!"

"I don't care, I'll kill him! Let them send me to Siberia, I don't
care!"

The women were screaming. Drunken officials rushed into the cottage and
separated father and son. The father had an arm broken and the son's
beard was torn out. In the doorway a drunken girl was making violent
love to an old besotted peasant.

"They are beasts!" said the young Tsar.

Another touch of his guide's hand and the young Tsar awoke in a new
place. It was the office of the justice of the peace. A fat, bald-headed
man, with a double chin and a chain round his neck, had just risen from
his seat, and was reading the sentence in a loud voice, while a crowd
of peasants stood behind the grating. There was a woman in rags in the
crowd who did not rise. The guard gave her a push.

"Asleep! I tell you to stand up!" The woman rose.

"According to the decree of his Imperial Majesty--" the judge began
reading the sentence. The case concerned that very woman. She had taken
away half a bundle of oats as she was passing the thrashing-floor of
a landowner. The justice of the peace sentenced her to two months'
imprisonment. The landowner whose oats had been stolen was among the
audience. When the judge adjourned the court the landowner approached,
and shook hands, and the judge entered into conversation with him. The
next case was about a stolen samovar. Then there was a trial about
some timber which had been cut, to the detriment of the landowner. Some
peasants were being tried for having assaulted the constable of the
district.

When the young Tsar again lost consciousness, he awoke to find himself
in the middle of a village, where he saw hungry, half-frozen children
and the wife of the man who had assaulted the constable broken down from
overwork.

Then came a new scene. In Siberia, a tramp is being flogged with the
lash, the direct result of an order issued by the Minister of justice.
Again oblivion, and another scene. The family of a Jewish watchmaker
is evicted for being too poor. The children are crying, and the Jew,
Isaaks, is greatly distressed. At last they come to an arrangement, and
he is allowed to stay on in the lodgings.

The chief of police takes a bribe. The governor of the province also
secretly accepts a bribe. Taxes are being collected. In the village,
while a cow is sold for payment, the police inspector is bribed by a
factory owner, who thus escapes taxes altogether. And again a village
court scene, and a sentence carried into execution--the lash!

"Ilia Vasilievich, could you not spare me that?"

"No."

The peasant burst into tears. "Well, of course, Christ suffered, and He
bids us suffer too."

Then other scenes. The Stundists--a sect--being broken up and dispersed;
the clergy refusing first to marry, then to bury a Protestant. Orders
given concerning the passage of the Imperial railway train. Soldiers
kept sitting in the mud--cold, hungry, and cursing. Decrees issued
relating to the educational institutions of the Empress Mary Department.
Corruption rampant in the foundling homes. An undeserved monument.
Thieving among the clergy. The reinforcement of the political police.
A woman being searched. A prison for convicts who are sentenced to be
deported. A man being hanged for murdering a shop assistant.

Then the result of military discipline: soldiers wearing uniform and
scoffing at it. A gipsy encampment. The son of a millionaire exempted
from military duty, while the only support of a large family is forced
to serve. The university: a teacher relieved of military service, while
the most gifted musicians are compelled to perform it. Soldiers and
their debauchery--and the spreading of disease.

Then a soldier who has made an attempt to desert. He is being tried.
Another is on trial for striking an officer who has insulted his mother.
He is put to death. Others, again, are tried for having refused to
shoot. The runaway soldier sent to a disciplinary battalion and flogged
to death. Another, who is guiltless, flogged, and his wounds sprinkled
with salt till he dies. One of the superior officers stealing money
belonging to the soldiers. Nothing but drunkenness, debauchery,
gambling, and arrogance on the part of the authorities.

What is the general condition of the people: the children are
half-starving and degenerate; the houses are full of vermin; an
everlasting dull round of labour, of submission, and of sadness. On the
other hand: ministers, governors of provinces, covetous, ambitious, full
of vanity, and anxious to inspire fear.

"But where are men with human feelings?"

"I will show you where they are."

Here is the cell of a woman in solitary confinement at Schlusselburg.
She is going mad. Here is another woman--a girl--indisposed, violated
by soldiers. A man in exile, alone, embittered, half-dead. A prison for
convicts condemned to hard labour, and women flogged. They are many.

Tens of thousands of the best people. Some shut up in prisons, others
ruined by false education, by the vain desire to bring them up as we
wish. But not succeeding in this, whatever might have been is ruined
as well, for it is made impossible. It is as if we were trying to make
buckwheat out of corn sprouts by splitting the ears. One may spoil the
corn, but one could never change it to buckwheat. Thus all the youth of
the world, the entire younger generation, is being ruined.

But woe to those who destroy one of these little ones, woe to you if you
destroy even one of them. On your soul, however, are hosts of them,
who have been ruined in your name, all of those over whom your power
extends.

"But what can I do?" exclaimed the Tsar in despair. "I do not wish to
torture, to flog, to corrupt, to kill any one! I only want the welfare
of all. Just as I yearn for happiness myself, so I want the world to be
happy as well. Am I actually responsible for everything that is done
in my name? What can I do? What am I to do to rid myself of such a
responsibility? What can I do? I do not admit that the responsibility
for all this is mine. If I felt myself responsible for one-hundredth
part of it, I would shoot myself on the spot. It would not be possible
to live if that were true. But how can I put an end, to all this evil?
It is bound up with the very existence of the State. I am the head of
the State! What am I to do? Kill myself? Or abdicate? But that would
mean renouncing my duty. O God, O God, God, help me!" He burst into
tears and awoke.

"How glad I am that it was only a dream," was his first thought. But
when he began to recollect what he had seen in his dream, and to compare
it with actuality, he realised that the problem propounded to him in
dream remained just as important and as insoluble now that he was
awake. For the first time the young Tsar became aware of the heavy
responsibility weighing on him, and was aghast. His thoughts no longer
turned to the young Queen and to the happiness he had anticipated for
that evening, but became centred on the unanswerable question which hung
over him: "What was to be done?"

In a state of great agitation he arose and went into the next room. An
old courtier, a co-worker and friend of his father's, was standing there
in the middle of the room in conversation with the young Queen, who
was on her way to join her husband. The young Tsar approached them, and
addressing his conversation principally to the old courtier, told him
what he had seen in his dream and what doubts the dream had left in his
mind.

"That is a noble idea. It proves the rare nobility of your spirit," said
the old man. "But forgive me for speaking frankly--you are too kind
to be an emperor, and you exaggerate your responsibility. In the first
place, the state of things is not as you imagine it to be. The people
are not poor. They are well-to-do. Those who are poor are poor through
their own fault. Only the guilty are punished, and if an unavoidable
mistake does sometimes occur, it is like a thunderbolt--an accident, or
the will of God. You have but one responsibility: to fulfil your task
courageously and to retain the power that is given to you. You wish the
best for your people and God sees that. As for the errors which you have
committed unwittingly, you can pray for forgiveness, and God will guide
you and pardon you. All the more because you have done nothing that
demands forgiveness, and there never have been and never will be men
possessed of such extraordinary qualities as you and your father.
Therefore all we implore you to do is to live, and to reward our endless
devotion and love with your favour, and every one, save scoundrels who
deserve no happiness, will be happy."

"What do you think about that?" the young Tsar asked his wife.

"I have a different opinion," said the clever young woman, who had been
brought up in a free country. "I am glad you had that dream, and I agree
with you that there are grave responsibilities resting upon you. I have
often thought about it with great anxiety, and I think there is a simple
means of casting off a part of the responsibility you are unable to
bear, if not all of it. A large proportion of the power which is
too heavy for you, you should delegate to the people, to its
representatives, reserving for yourself only the supreme control, that
is, the general direction of the affairs of State."

The Queen had hardly ceased to expound her views, when the old courtier
began eagerly to refute her arguments, and they started a polite but
very heated discussion.

For a time the young Tsar followed their arguments, but presently he
ceased to be aware of what they said, listening only to the voice of him
who had been his guide in the dream, and who was now speaking audibly in
his heart.

"You are not only the Tsar," said the voice, "but more. You are a human
being, who only yesterday came into this world, and will perchance
to-morrow depart out of it. Apart from your duties as a Tsar, of which
that old man is now speaking, you have more immediate duties not by any
means to be disregarded; human duties, not the duties of a Tsar towards
his subjects, which are only accidental, but an eternal duty, the duty
of a man in his relation to God, the duty toward your own soul, which is
to save it, and also, to serve God in establishing his kingdom on earth.
You are not to be guarded in your actions either by what has been or
what will be, but only by what it is your own duty to do."

*****

He opened his eyes--his wife was awakening him. Which of the three
courses the young Tsar chose, will be told in fifty years.