Through this hole it removed a pipe. Then Wagner asked us to leave and, having remained one, was engaged in the last preparations. In a few minutes I heard as millstones zavorochatsya slowly. I looked at the pipe rising meters by five over a roof, but did not notice over it the slightest sign of smoke or steam.
Wagner opened doors of a mill and invited us to enter.
– The mill works – he told, addressing Tarasovna. – You see this handle on a box? When want to stop a mill, turn the handle.
– Why to stop? It is more than enough of grain, I will grind day and night.
– Well also grind on health. Only you remember an arrangement: not to open a box.
Tarasovna began to thank Wagner.
– For the present there is nothing. When you collect flour for a grinding, then thank. We go – he addressed me. We went outside. – Now I go to Moscow – Wagner told. I will arrive back by a lunch by very interesting car.
– Car?
– D-d-yes – Wagner stretched. – Autofugue. Samobezhka, so to speak. Yes here you will see.
Having waved me at parting a hand, Wagner went to the station, vigorous, fresh in spite of the fact that worked all night long. I went to a garden, found for the town in a shadow of a shed and went deep into reading. However this day I was not fated to enjoy rest.
Bloodcurdling women’s scream sounded from a mill. As if two corkscrews made white-hot bored through to me eardrums, and at the same time and a brain. The violent cry which broke off silence sleepy Stryabtsov could be made only by vocal chords of the respectable widow Tulikova. Possibly, the bishop Gatton alive eaten by rats did not shout so before death as cried out Tarasovn. But what could frighten her so? On a mill was many rats and mice, but Tarasovna got used to them. I did not manage to rise from the earth as shout unexpectedly stopped on the choking note as though to Tarasovna someone squeezed a throat. I ran to a mill.
After a bright sun in the twilight of a mill at the first moment I could sort nothing. Everything was silent. Millstones continued the work. I took several steps and was hooked by a leg for something soft. My eyes already got used to the twilight a little. Having bent, I saw the heavy body of the widow Tulikova lying prone on a floor. Her one hand was rejected aside, fingers are convulsively compressed in a fist, other hand was pressed by a body… Murder?. Sudden death?. I turned Tarasovna’s body, took a hand and groped pulse. It was hardly notable. Tarasovna, probably, was in a deep faint.
I took a ladle and ran to the small river to gather waters and to sprinkle a little on Tarasovna. It seemed to me that I returned very quickly. But during this time Tarasovna already recovered. I did not manage to approach to the wide doors of a mill as from there ran out with the same violent shout of Tarasovn. As the enraged cow, she flew on me, brought down from legs, and the water from a ladle intended for its reduction in feeling poured over me. My side was decently hurt by the heavy foot which ran on my plunged Tarasovna’s body, the nape strongly hurt. I lay on the earth probably for about a minute while, at last, had an opportunity to think. At the end of the village, about the Village Council, Tarasovna’s shout interrupted by abrupt exclamations was heard. I hardly raised the head and took seat on the dusty road. On the occasion of a holiday peasants were at home, and members of the Village Council, sitting on a zavalinka at the chairman’s log hut, peacefully discussed public affairs when Tarasovna’s shout blew up before them as a bomb. The chairman поковырял in ears as if taking the got stuck Tarasovna’s squeals from there, and something told her. She began to chatter loudly again. Then all rose. The chairman called to the militiaman, and all moved to a mill. I noticed that Tarasovna, the woman not of shy ten, went in the thick of crowd, probably, being afraid to act forward. I rose, shook off and welcomed authorities.
– Well, show where it? – the chairman asked, shortening a stride.
– Yes here a box over a millstone, you see? – Tarasovna told, without entering a mill.
The chairman, probably, was afraid, but «noblesse oblige». It carefully approached a box.
– Here it piece what. How this box opens? Well, maybe, you understand better? – he addressed the militiaman.
The militiaman, the young guy in freckles, approached a box and bravely lifted a cover. At the same moment of Tarasovn shouted and ran out on the street. After it also the crowd of curious which jammed into a mill took to the heels. Only authorities remained on a mill. But also they involuntarily started back, having glanced in a box. I approached closer and when uvidat that is in a box, was struck not less the others.
In a box the end of horizontally rotating shaft was concluded. The wheel with the handle is attached to a shaft. A human hand – a live hand! – strong held this handle, and, probably, it rotated a wheel, and together with it and the shaft setting in motion through millstone gear wheels. In an elbow joint the hand was attached to the metal cylinder. This cylinder was connected to the pipe coming to light. Besides, two glass tubules and, apparently, the electric wires leaving a box were inserted into the cylinder it is less. On the same small box the galvanometer and the manometer were established.
Yes, with an ulterior motive Tarasovna so shouted. A strange and terrible impression was made by this working live human hand. Tarasovna, as well as her legendary progenitress Eve, curiosity ruined. Wagner was the same bad expert on female psychology, as well as bible god. Do not tell Wagner Tarasovne what in a box cannot be looked, she would not take an interest in the mechanism setting millstones in motion, quite satisfied with the fact that they spin. But Wagner forbade it to look and it excited insuperable curiosity. And now she learned the terrible truth: its millstones spin with a hand of the dead person!
Authorities were stunned. They did not know how to react to such case which is not provided by the law.
– Citizen! Get out from a box! – the militiaman shouted, assuming that if the hand moves, then she belongs to the living person who, obviously, is hidden in a box. But the hand continued to twirl a wheel, and no citizen appeared.
– There is no place to hide to the person here – the chairman told. – You see, the shoulder in bank is moved, and it is higher than one small box.
– Violation of the code about work – was thoughtfully told by the chairman’s son-in-law, the weigher of the railway station. – Without labor exchange uninsured is employed and, probably. Violation of days of rest and working hours. It is possible to appeal against the resolution.
– Whose hand? – the militiaman asked, having quickened.
– The summer resident my Wagner attached to me. His hand! – Tarasovna answered. – «I – say – to you I will use a mill, only do not look in a box». Unless I knew? Fie! That hands to earn bread by mortuaries? I do not want to work at a devil’s mill!
– And than badly? – the old man with the cunning blinked eyes asked. – It is not necessary to feed, it is not necessary to pay, and works day and night. And to a braid such piece to fit it or, say, to thresh. You lie on the furnace yes you eat kalatches, and it…
– And you be silent! – angrily the militiaman told. – Do not force down. I ask, a hand whose? Perhaps, here the smertoubiystvo occurred. Perhaps to the person the
