But it's a
long time ago, and I've forgotten what I heard."
"Perhaps you heard who killed the merchant?" asked Aksionov.
Makar Semyonich laughed, and replied: "It must have been him in whose
bag the knife was found! If some one else hid the knife there, 'He's
not a thief till he's caught,' as the saying is. How could any one put
a knife into your bag while it was under your head? It would surely
have woke you up."
When Aksionov heard these words, he felt sure this was the man who had
killed the merchant. He rose and went away. All that night Aksionov
lay awake. He felt terribly unhappy, and all sorts of images rose in
his mind. There was the image of his wife as she was when he parted
from her to go to the fair. He saw her as if she were present; her
face and her eyes rose before him; he heard her speak and laugh. Then
he saw his children, quite little, as they: were at that time: one
with a little cloak on, another at his mother's breast. And then he
remembered himself as he used to be-young and merry. He remembered how
he sat playing the guitar in the porch of the inn where he was
arrested, and how free from care he had been.
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