Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy

Peter Gerásimovitch's assumption was correct. The president came back from the debating room with a paper, and read as follows: -- "April 28th, 188. By His Imperial Majesty's ukase No. -- -- - The Criminal Court, on the strength of the decision of the jury, in accordance with Section 3 of Statute 771, Section 3 of Statutes 770 and 777, decrees that the peasant, Simeon Kartínkin, thirty-three years of age, and the meschánka Katerína Máslova, twenty-seven years of age, are to be deprived of all property rights and to be sent to penal servitude in Siberia, Kartínkin for eight, Máslova for four years, with the consequences stated in Statute 25 of the code. The meschánka Bótchkova, forty-three years of age, to be deprived of all special personal and acquired rights, and to be imprisoned for three years with consequences in accord with Statute 48 of the code. The costs of the case to be borne equally by the prisoners; and, in the case of their being without sufficient property, the costs to be transferred to the Treasury. Articles of material evidence to be sold, the ring to be returned, the phials destroyed. " Bótchkova was condemned to prison, Simeon Kartínkin and Katerína Máslova to the loss of all special rights and privileges and to penal servitude in Siberia, he for eight and she for four years.

Kartínkin stood holding his arms close to his sides and moving his lips. Bótchkova seemed perfectly calm. Máslova, when she heard the sentence, blushed scarlet. "I'm not guilty, not guilty! " she suddenly cried, so that it resounded through the room. "It is a sin! I am not guilty! I never wished -- I never thought! It is the truth I am saying -- the truth! " and sinking on the bench she burst into tears and sobbed aloud. When Kartínkin and Bótchkova went out she still sat crying, so that a gendarme had to touch the sleeve of her cloak.