Delphi Complete Works of Anton Chekhov (Illustrated) (484 page)

CHAPTER XXXI

The unexpected eruption of one-eyed Kuz’ma into this almost finished story confused things most dreadfully. I was quite bewildered, and did not know what to think about Kuz’ma’s evidence. He denied any involvement, and the preliminary investigations were against his guilt. Olga had been murdered not from motives of greed; according to the doctors ‘it was probable’ that no attempt against her honour had been made; the only possible explanation if Kuz’ma had killed her was that he had done so for lust, or for money. He might have been drunk, or have strangled her in the course of an attack. But none of this tallied with the setting of the murder.

But if Kuz’ma was not guilty, why had he not explained the presence of blood on his poddevka, and why had he invented dreams and hallucinations? Why had he implicated this gentleman, whom he had seen and heard, but had forgotten so entirely that he could not even remember the colour of his clothes?

Polugradov hurried back post haste.

‘Now you see, sir!’ he said, ‘if you had examined the scene of the crime at once, believe me all would have been plain now, as plain as a pikestaff! If you had examined all the servants at once, we could then have known who had carried Olga Nikolaevna and who had not. And now we can’t even find out at what distance from the scene of the crime this drunkard was lying!’

He cross-questioned Kuz’ma for about two hours, but could get nothing new out of him; he only said that while half asleep he had seen a gentleman, that the gentleman had wiped his hands on the skirts of his poddevka and had cursed him for a ‘drunken swine’, but he could not say who this gentleman was, nor what his face and clothes were like.

‘How much cognac did you drink?’

‘I finished half a bottle.’

‘Perhaps it was not cognac?’

‘No, sir, it was real fine champagne.’

‘So you even know the names of wines!’ the Assistant Prosecutor said, laughing.

‘How should I not know them? I’ve served my masters for more than thirty years, thank God! I’ve had time to learn...’

For some reason the Assistant Prosecutor required that Kuz’ma should be confronted with Urbenin... Kuz’ma looked for a long time at Urbenin, shook his head and said:

‘No, I can’t remember... perhaps it was Pëtr Egorych, perhaps not... Who can say?’

Polugradov shrugged his shoulders and drove away, leaving me to choose which was the right one of the two murderers.

The investigations were protracted... Urbenin and Kuz’ma were imprisoned in the guard-house of the village in which I lived. Poor Pëtr Egorych lost courage very much; he grew thin and grey and fell into a religious mood; two or three times he sent to me, begging to let him see the laws about punishments; it was evident he was interested in the extent of the punishment that awaited him.

‘What will become of my children?’ he asked me at one of the examinations. ‘If I were alone your mistake would not grieve me very much; but I must live... live for the children! They will perish without me. Besides, I... I am not able to part from them! What are you doing with me?’

When the guards said ‘thou’ to him, and when he had to go a couple of times from my village to the town and back on foot under escort, in the sight of all the people who knew him, he became despondent and nervous.

‘These are not lawyers,’ he cried so that he was heard all over the guard-house. ‘They are nothing but cruel, heartless boys, without mercy either for people or truth! I know why I am confined here, I know it! By casting the blame on me they want to hide the real culprit! The Count killed her; or if it was not the Count, it was his hireling!’

When he heard that Kuz’ma had been arrested, he was at first very pleased.

‘Now the hireling has been found!’ he said to me. ‘Now he’s been found!’

But soon, when he saw he was not released and when he was informed of Kuz’ma’s testimony, he again became depressed.

‘Now I’m lost,’ he said, ‘definitely lost. In order to get out of prison this one-eyed devil will be sure sooner or later to name me and say it was I who wiped my hands in his skirts. But you yourself saw that my hands had not been wiped!’

Sooner or later our suspicions would have to be elucidated.

About the end of November of that year, when snow began to drift before my windows and the lake looked like an endless white desert, Kuz’ma asked to see me; he sent the guard to tell me he had ‘thought things over’. I ordered him to be brought to me.

‘I am very pleased that you have at last thought the matter over,’ I greeted him. it is high time to finish with this dissembling and this leading us all by the nose like little children. Well, what do you have to say?’

Kuz’ma did not answer; he stood in the middle of my room in silence, staring at me without winking... Fear shone in his eyes; his whole person showed signs of great trepidation; he was pale and trembling, and a cold perspiration poured down his face.

‘Well, speak! What have you remembered?’ I asked again.

‘Something so extraordinary, that nothing can be more wonderful,’ he said. ‘Yesterday I remembered what sort of a tie that gentleman was wearing, and this night I was thinking and remembered his face.’

‘Then who was it?’

‘I’m afraid to say, your Honour; allow me not to speak: it’s too strange and wonderful; I think I must have dreamt it or imagined it...

‘Well, what have you imagined?’

‘No, allow me not to speak. If I tell you, you’ll condemn me... Give me a little time to think, and I’ll tell you tomorrow. I’m frightened!’

‘Pshaw!’ I began to get angry. ‘Why did you trouble me if you can’t speak? Why did you come here?’

‘I thought I would tell you, but now I’m afraid. No, your Honour, please let me go... I’d rather tell you tomorrow... If I tell you, you’ll get so angry that I’d sooner go to Siberia - you’ll condemn me...’

I got angry and ordered Kuz’ma to be taken away. In-the evening of that very day, in order not to lose time and to put an end to this tiresome murder case, I went to the guard-house and tested Urbenin by telling him that Kuz’ma had named him as the murderer.

‘I expected it,’ Urbenin said with a wave of his hand, it’s all one to me...’

Solitary confinement had greatly affected Urbenin’s health; he had grown sallow and had shrunk to almost half his weight. I promised to order the guards to allow him to walk about the corridors during the daytime and even by night.

‘I’m sure there’s no fear of your trying to escape,’ I said.

Urbenin thanked me, and after my departure he walked about the corridor; his door was no longer kept locked.

On leaving him I knocked at the door behind which Kuz’ma was seated.

‘Well, have you thought it over yet?’ I asked.

‘No, sir,’ a weak voice answered. ‘Let the Prosecutor come; I will tell him, but I won’t tell you.’

‘As you like!’

The next morning it was all over.

The watchman Egor came running to me and informed me that one-eyed Kuz’ma had been found dead in his bed. I hastened to the guard-house to assure myself of the fact. The strong, big muzhik, who the day before was full of health and inventing all sorts of tales to get himself free, was stark and cold as a stone... I will not try to describe the horror the guards and I felt; it will be understood by the reader. Kuz’ma was important to me both as accuser and as witness; to the warders he was a prisoner for whose death or flight they would be severely punished... Our horror was only increased when at the post-mortem examination it was discovered that he had died a violent death... Kuz’ma had died from suffocation... Once convinced that he had been suffocated, I began to search for the culprit, and I had not long to search... He was near...

‘You scoundrel! It was not enough for you to kill your wife,’ I said, ‘but you must take the life of the man who convicted you! And you continue to act out this filthy comedy.’

Urbenin grew deadly pale and began to shake...

‘You lie!’ he cried, striking himself on the breast with his fist.

I do not lie! You shed crocodile tears at our evidence and made game of it... There were moments when I was tempted to believe you rather than the evidence... Oh, you are a good actor! But now I won’t believe you, even should blood flow from your eyes instead of these play-actor’s false tears! Admit that you killed Kuz’ma!’

‘You are either drunk or laughing at me! Sergey Petrovich, patience and submissiveness has its limits; I can bear this no longer!’

And Urbenin, with flashing eyes, struck the table with his clenched fist.

‘Yesterday I was imprudent enough to give you more liberty,’ I continued, ‘by allowing you that which no other prisoner is allowed, to walk about the corridors. And now it appears, out of gratitude you went to the door of that unfortunate Kuz’ma and suffocated a sleeping man! Do you know that you have not only killed Kuz’ma; the warders will also be ruined on your account.’

‘What have I done, good God?’ Urbenin said, seizing hold of his head.

‘Do you want the proofs? I will give them... By my orders your door was left open... The foolish warders opened the door and forgot to hide the lock... All the cells are opened with the same key... In the night you took your key and going into the corridor, you opened your neighbour’s door with it... Having smothered him, you locked the door and put the key into your own lock.’

‘Why should I smother him? Why?’

‘Because he denounced you... If yesterday I had not given you this news, he would have been alive now... It is sinful and shameful, Pëtr Egorych!’

‘Sergey Petrovich,’ the murderer suddenly said in a soft, tender voice, seizing me by the hand, ‘you are an honest and respectable man! Do not ruin and sully yourself with false suspicions and over-hasty accusations! You cannot understand how cruelly and painfully you have wounded me by casting upon my soul, which is wholly innocent, a new accusation... I am a martyr, Sergey Petrovich! You should be afraid to wrong a martyr! The time will come when you will have to beg my pardon, and that time will be soon... You can’t really want to accuse me! But this pardon will not satisfy you... Instead of assailing me so terribly with insults, it would have been better if you had questioned me in a humane -I will not say a friendly — way (you have already renounced all friendly relations). If we take this new accusation... I could tell you much. I did not sleep last night, and heard everything.’

‘What did you hear?’

‘Last night, at about two o’clock... all was dark... I heard somebody walking about the corridor very softly, and constantly touching my door... He walked up and down, and then opened my door and came in.’

‘Who was it?’

‘I don’t know; it was dark - I did not see... He stood for about a minute and went away again... exactly as you said... He took the key out of my door and opened the next cell. Two minutes later I heard a guttural sound and then a commotion. I thought it was the warder rushing around, and the sounds I took for snores, otherwise I would have raised the alarm.’

‘Fables,’ I said. ‘There was nobody here but you who could have killed Kuz’ma. The warders were all asleep. The wife of one of them, who could not sleep last night, has given evidence that all three warders slept like dead men and never left their beds for a minute; the poor fellows did not know that such brutes as you could be found in this miserable guard-house. They have been serving here for more than twenty years, and during all that time they have never had a single case of a prisoner having escaped, to say nothing of such an abomination as a murder. Now, thanks to you, their life has been turned upside down; I, too, will have to suffer on your account because I did not send you to the town prison, and even gave you the liberty of walking about the corridors. Thank you!’