SOON after two o'clock one night, long ago, the cook, pale and
agitated, rushed unexpectedly into my study and informed me that
Madame Mimotih, the old woman who owned the house next door, was
sitting in her kitchen.
"She begs you to go in to her, sir . . ." said the cook, panting.
"Something bad has happened about her lodger. . . . He has shot
himself or hanged himself. . . ."
"What can I do?" said I. "Let her go for the doctor or for the
police!"
"How is she to look for a doctor! She can hardly breathe, and she
has huddled under the stove, she is so frightened. . . . You had
better go round, sir."
I put on my coat and hat and went to Madame Mimotih's house. The
gate towards which I directed my steps was open. After pausing
beside it, uncertain what to do, I went into the yard without feeling
for the porter's bell. In the dark and dilapidated porch the door
was not locked. I opened it and walked into the entry. Here there
was not a glimmer of light, it was pitch dark, and, moreover, there
was a marked smell of incense. Groping my way out of the entry I
knocked my elbow against something made of iron, and in the darkness
stumbled against a board of some sort which almost fell to the
floor. At last the door covered with torn baize was found, and I
went into a little hall.
I am not at the moment writing a fairy tale, and am far from intending
to alarm the reader, but the picture I saw from the passage was
fantastic and could only have been drawn by death. Straight before
me was a door leading to a little drawing-room. Three five-kopeck
wax candles, standing in a row, threw a scanty light on the faded
slate-coloured wallpaper. A coffin was standing on two tables in
the middle of the little room. The two candles served only to light
up a swarthy yellow face with a half-open mouth and sharp nose.
Billows of muslin were mingled in disorder from the face to the
tips of the two shoes, and from among the billows peeped out two
pale motionless hands, holding a wax cross. The dark gloomy corners
of the little drawing-room, the ikons behind the coffin, the coffin
itself, everything except the softly glimmering lights, were still
as death, as the tomb itself.
"How strange!" I thought, dumbfoundered by the unexpected panorama
of death. "Why this haste? The lodger has hardly had time to hang
himself, or shoot himself, and here is the coffin already!"
I looked round. On the left there was a door with a glass panel;
on the right a lame hat-stand with a shabby fur coat on it. . . .
"Water. . . ." I heard a moan.
The moan came from the left, beyond the door with the glass panel.
I opened the door and walked into a little dark room with a solitary
window, through which there came a faint light from a street lamp
outside.
"Is anyone here?" I asked.
And without waiting for an answer I struck a match. This is what I
saw while it was burning. A man was sitting on the blood-stained
floor at my very feet. If my step had been a longer one I should
have trodden on him. With his legs thrust forward and his hands
pressed on the floor, he was making an effort to raise his handsome
face, which was deathly pale against his pitch-black beard. In the
big eyes which he lifted upon me, I read unutterable terror, pain,
and entreaty. A cold sweat trickled in big drops down his face.
That sweat, the expression of his face, the trembling of the hands
he leaned upon, his hard breathing and his clenched teeth, showed
that he was suffering beyond endurance. Near his right hand in a
pool of blood lay a revolver.
"Don't go away," I heard a faint voice when the match had gone out.
"There's a candle on the table."
I lighted the candle and stood still in the middle of the room not
knowing what to do next. I stood and looked at the man on the floor,
and it seemed to me that I had seen him before.
"The pain is insufferable," he whispered, "and I haven't the strength
to shoot myself again. Incomprehensible lack of will."
I flung off my overcoat and attended to the sick man. Lifting him
from the floor like a baby, I laid him on the American-leather
covered sofa and carefully undressed him. He was shivering and cold
when I took off his clothes; the wound which I saw was not in keeping
either with his shivering nor the expression on his face. It was a
trifling one. The bullet had passed between the fifth and sixth
ribs on the left side, only piercing the skin and the flesh. I found
the bullet itself in the folds of the coat-lining near the back
pocket. Stopping the bleeding as best I could and making a temporary
bandage of a pillow-case, a towel, and two handkerchiefs, I gave
the wounded man some water and covered him with a fur coat that was
hanging in the passage. We neither of us said a word while the
bandaging was being done. I did my work while he lay motionless
looking at me with his eyes screwed up as though he were ashamed
of his unsuccessful shot and the trouble he was giving me.
"Now I must trouble you to lie still," I said, when I had finished
the bandaging, "while I run to the chemist and get something."
"No need!" he muttered, clutching me by the sleeve and opening his
eyes wide.