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He kept on repeating in indignant whispers: "Oh, the scoundrel! The wretch!" Ostrov and Trirodov managed to restrain him with great difficulty. "Be silent. Let him babble out everything," they said to him. At last Matov's impudent boastfulness was too much for Krovlin, who jumped out from his hiding-place, and shouted: "So that's how it is! You've betrayed our men to the police!
He filled it with a colourless liquid, and lowered into it the cube containing Matov's body. The slow process of rehabilitation began. Unperceived by the eye, the cube began to thaw and to swell. It needed a half-year before it would thaw out sufficiently to permit the body to peer through. Sonya Svetilovitch was badly shaken by the hard, cruel events of that night in the woods.
And you have the face to confess it!" Dmitry Matov grew green with fear. He shouted to his companion: "Kill him! He has been listening to us! Shoot quick! He mustn't live. He will give us both up!" At this moment two other men appeared from the same place. Lunitsin aimed his revolver straight at Matov's forehead, and asked: "Who ought to be killed, traitor?"
Matov's widow soon died from a sudden, sharp illness. Her sons remained in the house of Rameyev. He became their guardian. "He's an agitator and a conspirator," said Zherbenev sharply. Ostrov smiled. "All the same, I must stand up for my friend. Pardon me if I ask the question: are these calumnies against my friend actuated by patriotic reasons? Of course, from the most honourable impulses!"
About the same time, in response to some one's complaint, the President of the District Council had been dispatched "in administrative order" to the Olonetsk Government. There were dark rumours about Matov. At the next election a few votes were given in his favour, but not enough. He ceased to have any connexion with the District Council. Matov's money affairs were in a bad state.
She laughed, and said with assumed gaiety: "What a strange creature!" Trirodov turned upon her his melancholy glances and said quietly: "He talks like one who knows. He talks like one who sees. But no one can know what happened." Oh, if one could only know! If one could only change that which once had happened! Trirodov recalled again during these days the dark history of Piotr Matov's father.
He injected with a small syringe several drops of the liquid under Dmitry Matov's skin. Matov gave a feeble cry and fell heavily to the floor. In a few moments the body lay before them, blue and apparently lifeless. Lunitsin examined Matov and said: "He's done for." The men left one by one. Trirodov alone remained with Matov's body. Trirodov took off Matov's clothes and burned them in the stove.
But his protestations soon grew weaker. Then he began to beg for mercy. He spoke of his wife and of his children. Matov's entreaties failed to impress any one. His judges were adamant. His fate was decided. The sentence of hanging was passed unanimously. Matov was bound. The noose was already thrown about his neck. Then Trirodov intervened: "What are you going to do with him?
Trirodov left by the morning train for home, carrying with him Dmitry Matov's body. At home Trirodov put the body into a vessel containing a greenish liquid compounded by himself. Matov's body shrunk in it even more. It had become barely more than seven inches long. But as before all its proportions remained inviolate.
Then Trirodov prepared a special plastic substance, in which he wrapped Matov's body. He pressed it compactly into the form of a cube, and placed it on his writing-table. And thus a thing that once had been a man remained there a thing among other things. Nevertheless Trirodov was right when he told Ostrov that Matov had not been killed.
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