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child’s exercise book with ruled pages. He recognizes at once the slanted script with its trailing loops and dashes. Orphan writing, he thinks: I will have to learn to love it. He places a protective hand over the page.
    â€˜Read it,’ says his antagonist softly.
    He tries to read but he cannot concentrate; the more he tries, the more he sees only details of penmanship. His eyes are blurred with tears too; he dabs with a sleeve to prevent them from falling and blotting the page. ‘Trackless wastes of snow,’ he reads, and wants to correct the cliché. Something about a man out in the open, something about the cold. He shakes his head and closes the book.
    Maximov reaches across and tugs it gently from him. He turns the pages till he finds what he wants, then pushes it back across the desk. ‘Read this part,’ he says, ‘just a page or two. Our hero is a young man convicted of treasonous conspiracy and sent to Siberia. He escapes from prison and finds his way to the home of a landowner, where he is hidden and fed by a kitchenmaid, a peasant girl. They are young, romantic feelings develop between them, and so forth. One evening the landowner, who is portrayed as a gross sensualist, tries to force his attentions on the girl. This is the passage I suggest you read.’
    Again he shakes his head. .
    Maximov takes the book back. ‘The young man can bear the spectacle no longer. He comes out of his hiding-place and intervenes.’ He begins to read aloud. ‘“Karamzin” – that is the landowner – “turned upon him and hissed, ‘Who are you? What are you doing here?’ Then he took in the tattered grey uniform and the broken leg-shackle. ‘Aha, one of those!’ he cried – ‘I’ll soon take care of you!’ He turned and began to lumber out of the room.” That is the word used, “lumber,” I like it. The landowner is described as a pug-faced brute with hairy ears and short, fat legs. No wonder our young hero is offended: age and ugliness pawing maiden beauty! He picks up a hatchet from beside the stove. “With all the force at his command, shuddering even as he did so, he brought the hatchet down on the man’s pale skull. Karamzin’s knees folded beneath him. With a great snort like a beast’s he fell flat on the scrubbed kitchen floor, his arms spread out wide, his fingers twitching, then relaxing. Sergei” – that is our hero’s name – “stood transfixed, the bloody hatchet in his hand, unable to believe what he had done. But Marfa” – that is the heroine – “with a presence of mind he did not expect, snatched up a wet rag and pushed it under the dead man’s head so that the blood would not spread.” A nice touch of realism, don’t you think?
    â€˜The rest of the story is sketchy – I won’t read on. Perhaps, once the obscene Karamzin has been polished off, our author’s inspiration began to dwindle. Sergei and Marfa drag the body off and drop it down a disused well. Then they set off together into the night “full of resolution” – that is the phrase. It is not clear whither they intend to flee. But let me mention one last detail. Sergei does not leave the murder, weapon behind. No, he takes it with him. What for, asks Marfa? I quote his reply. “Because it is the weapon of the Russian people, our means of defence and our means of revenge.” The bloody axe, the people’s revenge – the allusion could not be clearer, could it?’
    He stares at Maximov in disbelief. ‘I can’t believe my ears,’ he whispers. ‘Do you really intend to construe this as evidence against my son – a story, a fantasy, written in the privacy of his room?’
    â€˜Oh dear, no, Fyodor Mikhailovich, you misunderstand me!’ Maximov throws himself back in his chair, shaking his head in seeming distress. ‘There