ground and kicked her. I tried to defend her, but he snatched up the
reins and thrashed her with them, and all the while, like a colt's
whinny, he went: 'He--he--he!'"

"I'd take the reins and let you feel them," muttered Varvara, moving
away; "murdering our sister, the damned brutes!..."

"Hold your tongue, you jade!" Dyudya shouted at her.

"'He--he--he!'" Matvey Savitch went on. "A carrier ran out of his
yard; I called to my workman, and the three of us got Mashenka away from
him and carried her home in our arms. The disgrace of it! The same day
I went over in the evening to see how things were. She was lying in bed,
all wrapped up in bandages, nothing but her eyes and nose to be
seen; she was looking at the ceiling. I said: 'Good-evening, Marya
Semyonovna!' She did not speak. And Vasya was sitting in the next room,
his head in his hands, crying and saying: 'Brute that I am! I've ruined
my life! O God, let me die!' I sat for half an hour by Mashenka and gave
her a good talking-to. I tried to frighten her a bit. 'The righteous,'
said I, 'after this life go to Paradise, but you will go to a Gehenna of
fire, like all adulteresses. Don't strive against your husband, go and
lay yourself at his feet.' But never a word from her; she didn't so
much as blink an eyelid, for all the world as though I were talking to
a post. The next day Vasya fell ill with something like cholera, and
in the evening I heard that he was dead. Well, so they buried him,
and Mashenka did not go to the funeral; she didn't care to show her
shameless face and her bruises. And soon there began to be talk all over
the district that Vasya had not died a natural death, that Mashenka had
made away with him. It got to the ears of the police; they had Vasya dug
up and cut open, and in his stomach they found arsenic. It was clear he