 THE GHOSTS OF MANY CHRISTMAS This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, this reading by Lucy Burgoyne. THE GHOSTS OF MANY CHRISTMAS From the Collection of Children of the Bush by Henry Lawson. Did you ever trace back your Christmas days, right back to the days when you were innocent and Santa Claus was real? At times you thought you were very wicked, but you never realised how innocent you were until you grown up and knocked about the world. Let me think, Christmas in an English village with bare hedges and trees and leaden skies that lie heavy on our souls as we walk, with overcoat and umbrella, suns of English exiles and exiles in England, and think of bright skies and suns overhead, and sweeps of country disappearing into the haze, and blue mountain ranges melting into the azure of distant lower skies, and curves of white and yellow sand beaches, and runs of shelving yellow sandstone sea walls, and the glorious Pacific, Sydney Harbour at sunrise, and the girls we took to Manly Beach. Christmas in a London flat, gloom and slush and soot. It is not the cold that affects us Australians so much, but the horrible gloom. We get heart-sick for the sun. Christmas at sea, three Christmases, in fact, one going saloon from Sydney to West Australia early in the golden nineties, with funds, and one the Christmas after next, coming back steerage with nothing but the clothes we'd slept in, all of which was bad judgement on our part. The order and manner of our going and coming should have been reversed. Christmas in a Hessian tent in the western, and so many old mates from the east that it was just old times over again. We had five pounds of corned beef and a kerosene tin to boil it in, and while we were talking of old things, the skeleton of a kangaroo dog grabbed the beef out of the boiling water and disappeared into the scrum, which made it seem more like old times than ever. Christmas going to New Zealand, with experience by the SS Tasmania. We had plumbed up, but it was too soggy for us to eat. We dropped it overboard, lest it should swamp the boat and its sun to the use. The Tasmania was saved on that occasion, but she founded next year outside Gisborne. Perhaps a cook had made more duff. There was a letter from a sweetheart of mine amongst her males when she went down, but that's got nothing to do with it, though it made some difference in my life. Christmas on a new telegraph line with a party of lining gangmen in New Zealand. There was no duff nor roast because there was no firewood within twenty miles. The cook used to pile armfuls of flak sticks under the billies and set light to them when the last man arrived in camp. Christmas in Sydney with a dozen invitations out to dinner. The one we accepted was to a sensible Australian Christmas dinner, a typical one, as it should be and will be before the Commonwealth is many years old. Everything cold except the vegetables, the hose playing on the veranda and vines outside, the men dressed in sensible pajama-like suits, and the women and girls fresh and cool and jolly, instead of being hot and cross and looking like boiled carrots and feeling like boiled rags and having headaches after dinner, as would have been the case had they broiled over the fire in a hot kitchen or the blazing forenoon to cook a scalding in digestible dinner, as many Australian women do, and for no other reason than that it was the fashion in England. One of those girls was very pretty and ah well. Christmas dinner in a greasy Sydney six penny restaurant that opened a few days before with brass band going at full blast at the door by way of advertisement. Roast beef one, cabbage and potatoes one, plum pudding two, that was the first time I dined to music. The Christmas dinner was a good one, but my appetite was foiled by the expression of the restaurant keeper, a big man with a heavy jail who sat by the door with a cold eye on the sixpences and didn t seem to have much confidence in human nature. Christmas no, that was New Year on the Warago River, out back an alleged river with a stickly stream that looked like bad milk. We spent most of that night hunting round in the dark and feeling on the ground for camel and horse droppings, with which to build fires and make smoke round our camp to keep off the mosquitoes. The mosquitoes started at sunset and left off at daybreak when the flies got to work again. Christmas dinner under a brush shearing shed, mutton and plum pudding and fifty miles from beer. An old bush friend of mine, one Jimmy Nowlett, who ranked as a bullock driver, told me of the Christmas time he had. He was cut off by the floods with his team and had nothing to eat for four days but potatoes and honey. He said potatoes dipped in honey weren t so bad but he had to sleep on bullock yokes laid on the ground to keep him out of the water and he got a toothache that paralysed him all down one side. And speaking of plum pudding, I consider it one of the most barbarious institutions of the British. It is a childish, silly, savage superstition and must have been a savage inspiration looking at it all round but then it isn t so long since the British were savages. I got a letter last year from a mate of mine in Western Australia prospecting the awful desert out beyond white feather telling me all about a perish he did on plum pudding. Leonie s mates were camped at the Boulder Soak with some three or four hundred miles mostly sand and dust between them and the nearest grocer shop. They ordered a case of mixed canned provisions from Perth to reach them about Christmas. They didn t believe in plum pudding. There are a good many British institutions the Bushmen don t believe in but the cook was a new chum and he said he d go home to his mother if he didn t have plum pudding for Christmas so they ordered a can for him. Meanwhile they hung out on kangaroo and damper and the knowledge that it couldn t last forever. It was in a terrible drought and the kangaroos used to come into soak for water and they were too weak to run. Later on when wells were dug the kangaroos used to commit suicide in them. There was generally a kangaroo in the well in the morning. The storekeeper packed the case of Tim Dogg etc but by some blunder he or his man put the label on the wrong box and it went per rail, per coach, per camel and the last stage, per boot and reached my friend s camp on Christmas Eve to their great joy. My friend broke the case open by the light of the campfire. He ejected, he said tossing out a can, he s your plum pudding. He held the next can in his hand a moment longer and read the label twice. Why? He sent two, he said, and I m sure I only ordered one. Never mind, Jack ll have a tuck out. He held the next can close to the fire and blinked at it hard. I m damned if he hasn t sent three tins of plum pudding. Never mind, we ll manage to scoff some of it between us. You re in luck s way this trip Jack and no mistake. He looked hard as still at the fourth can, then he read the labels on the other tins again to see if he ve made a mistake. He didn t tell me what he said then but a mould of mate suggested that the storekeeper had sent half a dozen tins by mistake but when they reached the seventh can the language was not fit to be written down on a piece of paper and handed up to the magistrate. The storekeeper had sent them an unbroken case of canned plum pudding and probably by this time he was wondering what had become of that blanky case of duff. The kangaroos disappeared about this time and my friend tells me that he and his mates had to live for a mortal fortnight on canned plum pudding. They tried a coal and they tried a boil, they tried a bake and had it fried, they had a toaster and had it for breakfast, dinner and tea. They had nothing else to think or talk or argue and quarrel about and they dreamed about it every night my friend says it wasn t a joke it gave them the nightmares and day horrors. They tried it with salt, they picked as many of the raisins out as they could and boiled it with salt and guru. They tried to make Yorkshire pudding out of it but it was too rich. My friend was experimenting and trying to discover a simple process for separating the ingredients of plum pudding when a fresh supply of provisions came along. He said he was never so sick of anything in his life and he has had occasion to be sick of a good many things. The new chum Jackaroo is still alive but he won t ever eat plum pudding any more. He says a cured him of homesickness he wouldn t eat it even if his bride made it. Christmas on the gold fields in the last of the roaring days, in the palmy days of Galgong and those fields, let s see it must be nearly thirty years ago, oh how the time goes by. Santa Claus young, fresh-faced and eager, Santa Claus blonde and flaxen, Santa Claus dark, Santa Claus with a brogue and Santa Claus speaking broken English, Santa Claus as a Chinaman, Sun Tong Li and co-storekeepers, with strange delicious sweets that melted in our mouths and rum toys and Chinese dolls for the children. Lucky diggers who were with difficulty restrained from putting pound notes and nuggets and expensive lockets and things into the little ones stockings, Santa Claus inflannel shirt and clay-covered mould skins, diggers who bought lollies by the pound and sent the little ones home with as much as they could carry, diggers who gave a guinea or more for a toy for a child that reminded them of some other child at home, diggers who took as many children as they could gather on short notice into a store, slapped a five pound note down on the counter and told the little ones to call for whatever they wanted, who set a family of poor children side by side on the counter and called for a box of mixed children s boots, the best and fitted them on with great care and anxiety and frequent inquiries as to whether they pinched, who stored little girls and boys on the counter and called for the most expensive frocks, the latest and best in sailor suits and the brightest ribbons and things came long distances by bullard gray and were expensive in those days, impressionable diggers and most of them were who threw nuggets to singers and who sometimes slipped a parcel into the hands of a little boy or girl with instructions to give it to an elder sister or young mother perhaps whom the digger had never spoken to only worshiped from afar off and the older sister or young mother opening the parcel would find a piece of jewelry or a costly article of dress and wonder who sent it, ah the wild generosity of luck intoxicated diggers of those days and the reckless generosity of the drinkers, we thought it was going to last forever, if I don't spend it on the bands I'll spend it on the drink, sandy boons used to save, I had known me own and the last who was to give me bands she couldn't wait, sandy had kept steady and travelled from one end of the world to the other and roughed it and toiled for five years and the very day he bottomed his golden hole on the brown snake lead at Happy Valley he got a letter from his girl in Scotland to say she had grown tired of waiting and was married then he drunk and drink and luck went together, galgong on New Year's Eve rose and rose of lighter tents and campfires with a clear glow over it all bonfires on the hills and diggers romping around them like big boys tin kettling gold dishes and spoons and fiddles and hammers on pointing anborgs and sticks and empty kerosene tins concertinas and cornets shotguns pistols and crackers all sorts of instruments an old-glaing vine in one mighty chorus and now a wretched little pastorial town a collection of glaring corrugated iron hip roofs and maybe a rotting propped up bark or weatherboard humpy or two relics of the roaring days a dried up storekeeper and some withered haves a waste of caved in holes with rain washed muller keeps and quartz and gravel glaring in the sun fiddles and burs where old bars were drought dryness desolation and goats lonely graves in the bush and grey old diggers here and there anywhere in the world doing anything for a living lonely yet because of the girls who couldn't wait but prospecting and fosking here and there and dreaming still they thought it was going to last forever Christmas at your under-rear Creek amongst the old selection farms in the western spurs of the blue mountains they used to call it the pipe clay 30 years ago but the old black names have been restored they make plum puddings yet weeks before hand and boil them for hours and hang them in cloths to the rafters to petrify then they take them down and boil them again on Christmas Eve the boys cut vows or young pines on the hills and drag them home and lush them to the branded posts Ted has turned up with his wife and children from his selection out back the week is in and shearing is over on the big stations Tom steady going old Tom clearing or fencing or damn sinking up country hides his tools in the scrub and gets his horse and rides home Aunt Emma to everyone's joy has arrived from Sydney with presents astonishing bargains in frocks etc and marvellous descriptions of town life Joe poor Mary's husband who has been driving in Queensland since the Christmas before last while poor Mary who is afraid to live alone shared a skillion and the family quarrels at home Joe rides day and night and reaches home at sunrise on Christmas morning tired and dusty gawk and haggard but with his last check intact he kisses his wife and child and throws himself on the bed to sleep till dinner time while Mary moves round softly hushes the baby dresses it and herself lays out Joe's clean things and bends over him now and then and kisses him perhaps as he sleeps in the morning the boys and some of the men go down to the creek for a swim in the big shady pool under the show and take their Sunday clothes with them and dress there some of them riding to town to church and some of the women and children drive in in spring carts the children go to Sunday school leaving mother and the eldest daughter usually a hard-worked disappointed short-tempered girl at home to look after the cooking there is some anxiety mostly on mother's part about Jim who is wild and is supposed to be somewhere out back there was a piece of blue paper out for Jim on account of sweating illegally using a horse but his mother or father has got a hint given in a kindly way by the police sergeant that Jim is free to come home and stay at home if he behaves himself there is usually a horse missing when Jim goes out back Jim turns up all right save that he has no money and is welcome with cheerful affection by his favorite sister Mary shakes hands silently with his father and has a long whispered conversation with his mother which leaves him very subdued his brothers forbear to sneer at him partly because it is Christmas partly on his mother's account and thirdly because Jim can use his hands aunt Emma who is fond of him cheers him up wonderfully the family sit down to dinner an old mate of your father's a bearded old digger has arrived and takes the place of honor I know your father sonny on the diggings long before any of you was ever thought on the family have only been a few hours together yet there is an undercurrent of growling that to the stranger mysterious yet evident under current of nastiness and resentment which goes on in all families and dreads many a promising young life down but aunt Emma and the old mate makes things brighter and so the dinner of hot roast and red hot plum pudding passes off fairly well the men sleep the afternoon away and wake up bathed in perspiration and helpless some of the women have headaches after tea they gather on the brand in the cool of the evening and that's the time when the best sides of their natures and the best parts of the past have a chance of coming up a most and perhaps they begin to feel a bit sorry that they are going to part again the local races of sports on Boxing Day there is nothing to keep the boys home over New Year Ted and his wife go back to their lonely life on their selection Tom returns to his fencing or tank sinking contract Jim who has borrowed a couple of quid from Tom goes out back with strong resolutions for the new year and she's stragglers breaks in horses cooks and cooks for survey parties and gambles and drinks and gets into trouble again maybe Joe knocks about the farmer bit before going into the great Northwest with another mob of cattle the last time I saw the old year out at Uundari the bushfires were burning all over the ranges and looks like great cities light it up no need for bonfires then Christmas in birth the metropolis at the great pastoral scrubs and planes 500 miles west with the thermometer 100 and something scary in the shade the rough Taylor shearers coming from stations many dusty miles out in scrubs to have their Christmas freeze to drink and shout and fight and have the horrors some of them and to be run in unlocked up with difficulty within sound of a church going bell the birth Christmas is a very beery and exciting one the hotels shut up in front on Christmas day to satisfy the law or out of consideration for the feelings of the sergeant in charge of the police station and open behind to satisfy the public who are supposed to have made the law sensible cold dinners other fashion in birth I think with the hose going and free and easy costumes the free male take their blankets and sleep in the park the women's sleep with doors and windows open and the married men on mattresses on the branders across the open doors in case of accidents Christmas in Sydney Christmas holidays are not so popular as Easter or even anniversary day in the Queen's City of the South buses electric cable and the old steam trains crowded with holiday makers with baskets harbour boats loaded down to the water's edge with harbour picnic parties a trip round the harbour and to the head at middle harbour one shelling return strings of tourist trains running over the blue mountains and the great zigzag and up the coast to Gosford and Brisbane water and down the coast to beautiful Elawara until after new year hundreds of young fellows going out with tents to fish in lonely bays or shoot in the mountains and rough it properly like bushman not with deck chairs crockery a piano and servants for you can camp in the grand and rugged solitude at the bush within a stone's throw at the city so to speak jolly camps and holiday parties all round the beautiful bays of the harbour and up and down the coast and all close to home camps in the moonlight on sandy beaches under great dark bluffs and headlands where yellow shelving sandstone clips run broken only by sandy beach bays and where the silver white breakers leap and roar and manly beach on a holiday thousands of people in fresh summer dress hundreds of bare-legged happy children running where the blue sea over the white sand rolls racing in and out with the rollers playing with the glorious Pacific manly our village manly beach where we used to take our girls with the most beautiful harbour in the world on one side and the width at the grandest ocean on the other 30 gullies and fairy delves to north and south every shady nook it's merry party or happy couple manly beach I remember five years ago oh how the time goes by and the two names that were written together in the sand when the tide was coming in and the boat home in the moonlight past the heads where we felt the role of the ocean and the moonlit harbour and the harbour lights of Sydney the grandest of them all the end of the ghosts of many Christmases from the collection of children at the bush by Henry Lawson God sees the truth but waits by Leo Tolstoy this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org in the town of Latimer lived a young merchant named Yvon Dimitrić Oxyanov he had two shops in a house of his own Oxyanov was a handsome fair-haired curly-headed fellow full of fun and very fond of singing when quite a young man he had been given to drink and was riotous when he had had too much but after he married he gave up drinking except now and then one summer Oxyanov was going to the nizny fair and as he bade goodbye to his family his wife said to him Yvon Dimitrić do not start today I have had a bad dream about you Oxyanov laughed and said you are afraid that when I get to the fair I shall go on a spree his wife replied I do not know what I am afraid of all I know is that I had a bad dream I dreamt you returned from the town and when you took off your cap I saw that your hair was quite gray Oxyanov laughed that's a lucky sign said he see if I don't sell out all my goods and bring you some presents from the fair so he said goodbye to his family and drove away when he had traveled halfway he met a merchant whom he knew and they put up at the same in for the night they had some tea together then went to bed in adjoining rooms it was not Oxyanov's habit to sleep lay and wishing to travel while it was still cool he aroused his driver before dawn and told him to put in the horses then he made his way across to the landlord of the inn who lived in a cottage at the back paid his bill and continued on his journey when he had gone about 25 miles he stopped for the horses to be fed Oxyanov rested a while in the passage of the inn then he stepped out into the porch and ordering a samovar to be heated got out his guitar and began to play suddenly a troika drove up with tinkling bells and an official alighted followed by two soldiers he came to Oxyanov and began to question him asking him who he was and whence he came Oxyanov answered him fully and said won't you have some tea with me but the official went on cross questioning him and asking him where did you spend last night were you alone or with a fellow merchant did you see the other merchant this morning why did you leave the inn before dawn Oxyanov wondered why he was asked all these questions but he described all that had happened and then added why do you cross question me as if I were a thief or a robber I am traveling on business of my own and there is no need to question me then the official calling the soldier said I am the police officer of this district and I question you because the merchant with whom you spent last night has been found with his throat cut we must search your things they entered the house the soldiers and the police officer unstrapped Oxyanov luggage and searched it suddenly the officer drew a knife out of a bag crying whose knife is this Oxyanov looked and seeing a bloodstained knife taken from his bag he was frightened how is it there is blood on this knife Oxyanov tried to answer but could hardly utter a word and only stammered I don't know not mine then the police officer said this morning the merchant was found in bed with his throat cut you are the only person who could have done it the house was locked from inside and no one else was there here is this bloodstained knife in your bag and your face and manner betray you tell me how you killed him and how much money you stole Oxyanov swore he had not done it that he had not seen the merchant after they had had tea together that he had no money except 8000 rubles of his own and that the knife was not his but his voice was broken his face pale and he trembled with fear as though he were guilty the police officer ordered the soldiers to bind Oxyanov and put him in the cart as they tied his feet together and flung him into the cart Oxyanov crossed himself and wept his money and goods were taken from him and he was sent to the nearest town and imprisoned there inquiries as to his character were made in vladimir the merchants and other inhabitants of that town said that in former days he used to drink and waste his time but that he was a good man then the trial came on he was charged with murdering a merchant from ryazon and robbing him of 20 000 rubles his wife was in despair and did not know what to believe her children were all quite small one was a baby at her breast taking them all with her she went to the town where her husband was in jail at first she was not allowed to see him but after much begging she obtained permission from the officials and was taken to him when she saw her husband in prison dress and in chains shut up with thieves and criminals she fell down and did not come to her senses for a long time then she drew her children to her and sat down near him she told him of things at home and asked about what had happened to him he told her all and she asked what can we do now we must petition the Tsar not to let an innocent man perish his wife told him that she had sent a petition to the Tsar but it had not been accepted aksyanov did not reply but only looked downcast then his wife said it was not for nothing i dreamt your hair had turned gray do you remember you should not have started that day and passing her fingers through his hair she said van you dearest tell your wife the truth was it not you who did it so you too suspect me said aksyanov and hiding his face in his hands he began to weep then a soldier came to say that his wife and children must go away and aksyanov said goodbye to his family for the last time when they were gone aksyanov recalled what had been said and when he remembered that his wife also had suspected him he said to himself it seems that only god can know the truth it is to him alone we must appeal and from him alone expect mercy and aksyanov wrote no more petitions gave up all hope and only prayed to god aksyanov was condemned to be flogged and sent to the mines so he was flogged with a knot and when the wounds made by the knot were healed he was driven to Siberia with other convicts for 26 years aksyanov lived as a convict in Siberia his hair turned white as snow and his beard grew long thin and gray all his mirth went he stooped he walked slowly spoke little and never laughed but he often prayed in prison aksyanov learned to make boots and earned a little money with which he bought the lives of the saints he read this book when there was light enough in the prison and on Sundays in the prison church he read the lessons and sang in the choir for his voice was still good the prison authorities liked aksyanov for his meekness and his fellow prisoners respected him they called him grandfather and the saint when they wanted to petition the prison authorities about anything they always made aksyanov their spokesman and when there were quarrels among the prisoners they came to him to put things right and to judge the matter no news reached aksyanov from his home and he did not even know if his wife and children were still alive one day a fresh gang of convicts came to the prison in the evening the old prisoners collected round the new ones and asked them what towns or villages they came from and what they were sentenced for among the rest aksyanov sat down near the newcomers and listened with downcast air to what was said one of the new convicts a tall strong man of 60 with a closely cropped gray beard was telling the others what he had been arrested for well friends he said i only took a horse that was tied to a sledge and i was arrested and accused of stealing i said i had only taken it to get home quicker and have then let it go besides the driver was a personal friend of mine so i said it's all right no said they you stole it but how aware i stole it they could not say i once really did something wrong and ought by rights to have come here long ago but that time i was not found out now i have been sent here for nothing at all eh but it's lies i'm telling you i've been to Siberia before but i did not stay long where are you from ask someone from vladimir my family are of that town my name is makar and they also call me samyanich aksyanov raised his head and said tell me samyanich do you know anything of the merchants aksyanov of vladimir are they still alive know them of course i do the aksyanov are rich though their father is in Siberia a sinner like ourselves it seems as for you granddad how did you come here aksyanov did not like to speak of his misfortune he only sighed and said for my sins i have been in prison these 26 years what sins asked makar samyanich but aksyanov only said well well i must have deserved it he would have said no more but his companions told the newcomers how aksyanov came to be in Siberia how someone had killed a merchant and had put the knife among aksyanov's things and aksyanov had been unjustly condemned when makar samyanich heard this he looked at aksyanov slapped his own knee and exclaimed well this is wonderful really wonderful but how old you've grown granddad the others asked him why he was so surprised and where he had seen aksyanov before but makar samyanich did not reply he only said it's wonderful that we should meet here lads these words made aksyanov wonder whether this man knew who had killed the merchant so he said perhaps samyanich you have heard of that affair or maybe you've seen me before how could i help learning the world's full of rumors but it's a long time ago and i've forgotten what i heard perhaps you heard who killed the merchant asked aksyanov makar samyanich laughed and replied it must have been him in whose bag the knife was found if someone else hid the knife there he's not a thief till he's caught as the saying is how could anyone put a knife into your bag while it was under your head it would surely have woke you up when aksyanov heard these words he felt sure this was the man who had killed the merchant he rose and went away all that night aksyanov 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 he saw in his mind the place where he was flogged the executioner and the people standing around the chains the convicts all the 26 years of his prison life and his premature old age the thought of it all made him so rich it that he was ready to kill himself and it's all that villain's doing thought aksyanov and his anger was so great against makar samyanich that he longed for vengeance even if he himself should perish for it he kept repeating prayers all night but could get no peace during the day he did not go near makar samyanich nor even look at him a fortnight passed in this way aksyanov could not sleep at night and was so miserable that he did not know what to do one night as he was walking about the prison he noticed some earth that came rolling out from under one of the shelves on which the prisoner slept he stopped to see what it was suddenly makar samyanich crept out from under the shelf and looked up at aksyanov with frightened face aksyanov tried to pass without looking at him but makar seized his hand and told him that he had dug a hole under the wall getting rid of the earth by putting it into his high boots and emptying it out every day on the road where the prisoners were driven to do their work just you keep quiet old man and you shall get out too if you blab they'll flog the life out of me but i will kill you first aksyanov trembled with anger as he looked at his enemy he drew his hand away saying i have no wish to escape and you have no need to kill me you killed me long ago as to telling of you i may do so or not as god shall direct next day when the convicts were let out to work the convoy soldiers noticed that one or other of the prisoners emptied some earth out of his boots the prisoner was searched and the tunnel found the governor came and questioned all the prisoners to find out who would dug the hole they all denied any knowledge of it those who knew would not betray makar samyanich knowing he would be flogged almost to death at last the governor turned to aksyanov whom he knew to be a just man and said you are a truthful old man tell me before god who dug the hole makar samyanich stood as if he were quite unconcerned looking at the governor and not so much as glancing at aksyanov aksyanov's lips and hands trembled and for a long time he could not utter a word he thought why should i screen him who ruined my life let him pay for what i have suffered but if i tell they will probably flog the life out of him and maybe i suspect him wrongly and after all what good would it be to me well old man repeated the governor tell me the truth who has been digging under the wall aksyanov glanced at makar samyanich and said i cannot say your honor it is not god's will that i should tell do what you like with me i am in your hands however much the governor tried aksyanov would say no more and so the matter had to be left that night when aksyanov was lying on his bed and just beginning to doze someone came quietly and sat down on his bed he peered through the darkness and recognized makar what more do you want of me asked aksyanov why have you come here makar samyanich was silent so aksyanov sat up and said what do you want go away or i will call the guard makar samyanich bent close over aksyanov and whispered ivan demichrich forgive me what for asked aksyanov it was i who killed the merchant and hid the knife among your things i meant to kill you too but i heard a noise outside so i hid the knife in your bag and escaped out of the window aksyanov was silent and did not know what to say makar samyanich slid off the bed shelf and knelt upon the ground ivan demichrich said he forgive me for the love of god forgive me i will confess that it was i who killed the merchant and you will be released and can go to your home it is easy for you to talk said aksyanov but i have suffered for you these 26 years where should i go to now my wife is dead and my children have forgotten me i have nowhere to go makar samyanich did not rise but beat his head on the floor if i'm demichrich forgive me he cried when they flogged me with the knot it was not so hard to bear as it is to see you now yet you had pity on me and did not tell for christ's sake forgive me wretch that i am and he began to sob when aksyanov heard him sobbing he too began to weep god will forgive you said he maybe i am a hundred times worse than you and at these words his heart grew light and the longing for home left him he no longer had any desire to leave the prison but only hoped for his last hour to come in spite of what aksyanov had said makar samyanich confessed his guilt but when the order for his release came aksyanov was already dead end of god sees the truth but waits by leo tollstoy recorded by chris kempton an arbor michigan november 2007