I WALKED along aimlessly, recounting all the happenings of the last few
weeks. I was astonished at my own blank insensibility. “Why, Veronika,
the Veronika you loved, is dead, murdered,” I said to myself, “and
you, you who loved her, have been in prison and on trial for the crime.
They have outraged you. They have sworn falsely against you. And the
very core of your life has been torn out. Yet you—what has come over
you? Are you heartless, have you no capacity for grief or indignation?
Oris it that you are still half stunned? And that presently you will
come to and begin to feel?” I strode on and on. It was broad day now.
By and by I looked around.
I was in Second avenue, near its southern extremity. I was standing in
front of a large red brick house. A white placard nailed to the door
caught my eye. “Room to let,” it said in big black letters.
“Room to let?” I repeated. “Why, I am in need of a room.” And
I entered the house and engaged the room. The landlady asked my name.
I told her it was Lexow, that having been the maiden-name of my mother.
Neuman had acquired too unpleasant a notoriety through the published
accounts of the trial. As Lexow I have been known ever since.
I employed an express agent to go to the Tombs and bring back my
luggage.
Then I sat at my window and watched the people pass in the street. I
sat there stockstill all day. I was aware of a vague feeling of
wretchedness, of a vague craving for a relief which I could not name.
As dusk gathered, a lump grew bigger and bigger in my throat. “I
am beginning to be unhappy,” I thought. “It is high time.” My
insensibility had frightened as well as puzzled me. Instinctively, I
knew it could not last forever, knew it for the calm that precedes
the storm. I was anxious that the storm should break while I was still
strong enough to cope with its fury. Waiting weakened me. Besides, I
was ashamed of myself, hated myself as one shallow and disloyal. That I
could be indifferent to Veronika’s death! I, who had called myself her
lover!
But now, as the lump grew in my throat, now, I thought, perhaps the hour
has come. I sat still in my chair, fanning this forlorn spark of hope.
In the end, by imperceptible degrees, sleep stole upon me. It was
natural. I had been up for more than six-and-thirty hours.
When I awoke a singular thing happened. Memory played me a singular
trick.
I awoke, conscious of a great luminous joy in my heart. It was full
morning. “Ah,” I thought, “how bright the sunshine is! how sweet
the air! To-day I will go to Veronika to-day, after my lessons—and
spend the lest of the afternoon and the evening at her side!” My heart
leaped at this prospect of happiness in store: and I commenced to plan
the afternoon and evening in detail. At last I jumped up, eager to begin
the delicious day.
The trick that memory played me was a simple one, after all. The recent
past had simply for the moment been obliterated, and I transported back
for a moment into the old time. As I stood now in the middle of the
floor, my eye was struck by the strangeness of my surroundings.
“Why, how is this?” I questioned. “Where am I?”
For a trice I was bewildered, but only for a trice. The truth reasserted
itself all at once—rose up and faced me with its grim, deathly visage,
as if cleared by a stroke of lightning. All at once I remembered; and
what is more, all at once the stupor that had hung like a cloud between
me and the facts, rolled away. I looked at my world. It was dust and
ashes, a waste space, peopled by ghosts. My heart recoiled, sickened,
horrified; then began to throb with the pain that had been ripening in
its womb ever since the morning when Tikulski pointed to her, stretched
murdered upon the bed.
Well, at last the storm had broken; at last I realized. At last I could
no longer reproach myself for a want of sensibility. At last I had my
desire. I yielded myself to the enjoyment of it for the remainder of the
day.
For weeks afterward I lay at the point of death. The slow convalescence
that ensued afforded me plenty of time to examine my position from every
point of view, and to get accustomed to understanding that the light
had gone out of my sky. Of course I hated the fate that condemned me to
regain my health. The thought that I should have to drag out years and
years of blank, aimless, joyless life, appalled me. The future was
a night through which I should be compelled to toil with no hope of
morning. Strangely enough, the idea of suicide never once suggested
itself.
When I was able to go out, I repaired to Epstein’s office. Several
little matters remained to be settled with him. As I was about to leave,
he said, “Neuman, do you propose to take any steps toward finding the
murderer?”
“Toward finding the murderer? Why, no; I had not thought of doing
so.”
“But of course you will. You won’t allow the affair to rest in statu
quo?”
“Why not?”
“Why, considering your relations to Miss Pathzuol, I should think your
motive would be plain. Don’t you want to see her murderer punished,
her death atoned for?”
“Her death atoned for! Her death can never be atoned for. And the
punishment of her murderer—would that restore her to me? Would that
undo the fact that she is dead? Else, why should I bestir myself about
it?”
“Common human nature ought to be enough; the natural wish to square
accounts with him.”
“Do you fancy, Epstein, that such an account as this can be squared?
Suppose we had him here now at our mercy, what could we do by way of
squaring accounts? Put him to death? Would that square the account? To
say so would be to compare his miserable life to hers.—But besides, he
is not at our mercy. We have no clew to him.”
“Yes, on the contrary, we have.”
“Indeed? What is it?”
“Why, the most apparent one. You are sure the Marshalls lied?”
“Oh yes; I am sure of that.”
“Well, what earthly inducement could they have had for lying—for
perjuring themselves, mind you, and running the risk of being caught and
sent to prison—what earthly inducement, unless thereby they hoped to
cover up their own guilt by throwing suspicion upon another man?”
“Yes; that is so. I had not thought of that.”
“Well, now, if you and I are sure that the Marshalls participated in
that crime, there is a solid starting-point. Now, will you not join me
and help to fasten the guilt upon them?”
“What good would it do? I say again, would that give her back to
me?”
“But, my dear fellow, even if you have no desire to see the murderer
punished, you must at least wish to retaliate upon the wretches who
jeopardized your life by their false swearing, who sought to thrust upon
your innocent shoulders the brunt of their own offending.”
“No; I confess, I have no such wish.”
“But—but you amaze me. Have you not the ordinary instincts of a man?
“It is the business of the police, any how. Let them move in the
matter. You ought to understand that I am sick and tired, that all I
wish for is to be left alone. No, no; if the Marshalls should ever be
brought to justice it will not be by my efforts. The police can manage
it for themselves.”
“But there is just the point.” Epstein hesitated; at length went on,
“There is just the point I wanted to bring to your notice. It will
be hard for you to hear, but you ought to understand—it is only right
that I should tell you—that—that—why, hang it, the police
will remain idle because they suppose they have already finished the
business, already put their finger on the—the man.”
“Well, why should they remain idle on that account? Why don’t they
arrest him and try him, as they did me, before a jury?”
“You don’t comprehend, Neuman. The fact of the matter is—you must
pardon me for saying so—the fact is, they still suspect you.”
“Suspect me? What, after the very jury has acquitted me? I thought the
verdict of the jury was conclusive.”
“So it is, in one sense. They can’t put you in jeopardy again. But
this is the way they stand. They say, ‘We haven’t sufficient legal
evidence to warrant a conviction, but we feel morally certain, all the
same, and so there’s no use prying further.’ That is my reason for
broaching the subject and for urging you so strongly. You ought to clear
your character, vindicate your innocence, by proving to the police
that they are wrong, that the guilt rests with their own witnesses, the
Marshalls.
“I thank you, Epstein, for telling me this. I am glad to realize just
what my status is. But let me cherish no misconception. Is this theory
of the police—is it held by others?”
“To be frank, I am afraid it is. The newspapers took it up and—and
I’m afraid it s the opinion of the public generally.”
“Then the verdict did not signify?”
“Well, at least not so far as public opinion is concerned.”
“So that I am to rest under this stigma all my life?”
“Why, no—not if you choose to exonerate yourself, as I have
indicated.”
“Oh, I don’t care about that. I don’t care to exonerate myself.
What difference would it make? Would it make the fact that she is lost
to me forever one shade less true? Only, it is well that I should have
a clear understanding of my position, and I thank you for giving it to
me.”
“You don’t mean to say that you are going to drop the case there?”
Epstein demanded. “I assure you, I never should have opened my mouth
about it, had I foreseen this.”
“Don’t reproach yourself. You have simply done your duty. It was
my right to hear this from you.—Yes, of course I shall drop the case.
Good-by.”
“You will think better of it; you will reconsider it; you will come
back to-morrow in a wiser frame of mind. Good-by.”
As I reentered my lodging-house the landlady met me; thrust an envelope
into my hand; and vanished.
I was surprised to see that the envelope was addressed to “E. Neuman,
Esquire.” It will be remembered that I had introduced myself as Mr.
Lexow. I tore it open. It inclosed a memorandum of my arrears of rent
and a notice to quit, the latter couched thus: “Mr. Neuman’s real
name having been learned during his sickness, please move out as soon as
you have paid up.”
I caught sight of myself in the glass. “So,” I said, “you are the
person whom people suspect as a murderer! and it is thus that you are to
be regarded all the rest of your life as one touched with the plague.”