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Updated: June 3, 2025
He was an Esthonian by birth, from Vezenberg, and in the course of several years, passing from one farm to another, he had come close to the capital. He spoke Russian very poorly, and as his master was a Russian, by name Lazarev, and as there were no Esthonians in the neighborhood, Yanson had practically remained silent for almost two years.
But in the dark everything was unnatural; the silence and the darkness were in themselves something like death. And the longer the night dragged the more dreadful it became. With the ignorant innocence of a child or a savage, who believe everything possible, Yanson felt like crying to the sun: "Shine!"
He had long forgotten about his crime, only sometimes he regretted that he had not been successful in attacking his master's wife. But he soon forgot that, too. Every morning Yanson asked when he was to be hanged, and every morning the warden answered him angrily: "Take your time, you devil! Wait!" and he would walk off quickly before Yanson could begin to laugh.
Think of having to live with such workmen!" And this same Ivan Yanson, who distrusted a gun, one winter evening, when the other workmen had been sent away to the station, committed a very complicated attempt at robbery, murder and rape. He did it in a surprisingly simple manner.
Where the hair was wet it lay dark and smooth, while on the other side it stuck up in light and sparse tufts, like straws upon a hail-beaten, wasted meadow. When the sentence was pronounced death by hanging Yanson suddenly became agitated. He reddened deeply and began to tie and untie the shawl about his neck as though it were choking him.
He begged, he implored that the sun should shine, but the night drew its long, dark hours remorselessly over the earth, and there was no power that could hasten its course. And this impossibility, arising for the first time before the weak consciousness of Yanson, filled him with terror.
"Let it go," said Werner, frowning, looking uneasily at Yanson, whose hand, holding the cigarette, was hanging loosely, as if dead. Suddenly Tsiganok turned quickly, bent over to Werner, close to him, face to face, and rolling the whites of his eyes, like a horse, whispered: "Master, how about the convoys? Suppose we we? Shall we try?" "No, don't do it," Werner replied, also in a whisper.
"You should not have committed murder. You would not be hanged then," answered the chief warden, a young but very important-looking man with medals on his chest. "You committed murder, yet you do not want to be hanged?" "He wants to kill human beings without paying for it. Fool! fool!" said another. "I don't want to be hanged," said Yanson.
You like to joke, but we are not allowed to," said the warden with dignity as he went away. Toward evening of that day Yanson had already grown thinner. His skin, which had stretched out and had become smooth for a time, was suddenly covered with a multitude of small wrinkles, and in places it seemed even to hang down.
"Good-by, master!" called Tsiganok loudly. "We'll meet each other in the other world, you'll see! Don't turn away from me. When you see me, bring me some water to drink it will be hot there for me!" "Good-by!" "I don't want to be hanged!" said Yanson drowsily. Werner took him by the hand, and then the Esthonian walked a few steps alone. But later they saw him stop and fall down in the snow.
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