Excerpt from “The Forged Coupon”
“Speak, where are my horses?” Stepan began, glancing gloomily now at the ground, now into Ivan’s face, and turning pale with anger.
Ivan Mironov said he knew nothing. Then Stepan hit him in the face and smashed his nose, which began to bleed.
“Speak or I’ll kill you!”
Ivan Mironov was silent, his head bent. Stepan struck him with his long arm once, twice. Ivan kept silent, only tossing his head now this way, now that.
“Everybody beat him!” cried the headman.
And everybody began to beat him. Ivan Mironov silently fell down and cried out:
“Barbarians, devils, beat me to death! I’m not afraid of you!”
Then Stepan seized a stone from a ready pile and smashed Ivan Mironov’s head.
—-
Tolstoy is so fucking metal.
