For several minutes no explanation could be arrived at amidst the general tumult. A crowd of people had collected, everyone was shouting and talking, children and old women were crying. Akoulína lay unconscious.
At last the men—the joiner and the steward—who had run to the place, went up the ladder, and the joiner’s wife began telling for the twentieth time how she, “nothing doubting, went to fetch a dress, and just looked—this wise—and see … a man … and I look, and a cap is lying inside-out, close by. I look … the legs are swinging. … I went cold all over! Is it pleasant? … To think of a man hanging himself, and that I should be the one to see him! … How I came clattering down I myself don’t remember … it’s a miracle how God saved me! Really, the Lord has had mercy on me! … Is it a trifle? … such steepness and from such a height. … Why, I might have been killed!”
The men who had gone up had the same tale to tell. Polikéy, in his shirt and trousers, was hanging from a rafter by the rope which he had unfastened from the cradle. His cap, turned inside out, lay beside him, his coat and sheepskin were neatly folded, and lay close by. His feet touched the ground, but he no longer showed signs of life.
Akoulína regained consciousness, and again rushed to the ladder, but was held back.
“Mamma, Syómka’s tsoking!” the lisping little girl suddenly cried from their cubicle. Akoulína tore herself away, and ran to her room. The baby did not stir, and his little legs were not moving. Akoulína snatched him out, but he did not breathe or move. She threw him down on the bed, and, with arms akimbo, burst into such loud, ringing, terrible laughter that Mary, who at first had started laughing herself, covered her ears with