Book 2, Chapter 8

All were silent in the common cell. Stepan was lying in his bed, but was not yet asleep. Vassily approached him, and, pulling him by his leg, asked him in a whisper to get up and to come to him. Stepan stepped out of his bed, and came up to Vassily.

“Do me a kindness, brother,” said Vassily. “Help me!”

“In what?”

“I am going to fly from the prison.”

Vassily told Stepan that he had everything ready for his flight.

“To-morrow I shall stir them up—” He pointed to the prisoners asleep in their beds. “They will give me away, and I shall be transferred to the cell in the upper floor. I know my way from there. What I want you for is to unscrew the prop in the door of the mortuary.” “I can do that. But where will you go?”

“I don’t care where. Are not there plenty of wicked people in every place?”

“Quite so, brother. But it is not our business to judge them.”

“I am not a murderer, to be sure. I have not destroyed a living soul in my life. As for stealing, I don’t see any harm in that. As if they have not robbed us!”

“Let them answer for it themselves, if they do.”

“Bother them all! Suppose I rob a church, who will be hurt? This time I will take care not to break into a small shop, but will get hold of a lot of money, and then I will help people with it. I will give it to all good people.”

One of the prisoners rose in his bed and listened. Stepan and Vassily broke off their conversation. The next day Vassily carried out his idea. He began complaining of the bread in prison, saying it was moist, and induced the prisoners to call the governor and to tell him of their discontent. The governor came, abused them all, and when he heard it was Vassily who had stirred up the men, he ordered him to be transferred into solitary confinement in the cell on the upper floor. This was all Vassily wanted.

(Source: The Forged Coupon: And Other Stories, by Leo Tolstoy, 1912, Translated from the Russian by Herman Bernstein, published by Ogilvie Publishing Company, 57 Rose Street, New York, produced for Gutenberg.org by Judith Boss and David Widger, 2006.)