do you explain her confusion on our arrival? How do you explain her
refusal to give information? Admitting that that is trivial--very good!
All right!--but think of the terms they were on! She detested her
brother! She is an Old Believer, he was a profligate, a godless fellow .
. . that is what has bred hatred between them! They say he succeeded in
persuading her that he was an angel of Satan! He used to practise
spiritualism in her presence!"
"Well, what then?"
"Don't you understand? She's an Old Believer, she murdered him through
fanaticism! She has not merely slain a wicked man, a profligate, she has
freed the world from Antichrist--and that she fancies is her merit, her
religious achievement! Ah, you don't know these old maids, these Old
Believers! You should read Dostoevsky! And what does Lyeskov say . . .
and Petchersky! It's she, it's she, I'll stake my life on it. She
smothered him! Oh, the fiendish woman! Wasn't she, perhaps, standing
before the ikons when we went in to put us off the scent? 'I'll stand up
and say my prayers,' she said to herself, 'they will think I am calm and
don't expect them.' That's the method of all novices in crime. Dear
Nikolay Yermolaitch! My dear man! Do hand this case over to me! Let me
go through with it to the end! My dear fellow! I have begun it, and I
will carry it through to the end."
Tchubikov shook his head and frowned.
"I am equal to sifting difficult cases myself," he said. "And it's your
place not to put yourself forward. Write what is dictated to you, that
is your business!"
Dyukovsky flushed crimson, walked out, and slammed the door.
"A clever fellow, the rogue," Tchubikov muttered, looking after him.
"Ve-ery clever! Only inappropriately hasty. I shall have to buy him a
cigar-case at the fair for a present."
Next morning a lad with a big head and a hare lip came from Klyauzovka.
He gave his name as the shepherd Danilko, and furnished a very
interesting piece of information.
"I had had a drop," said he. "I stayed on till midnight at my crony's.
As I was going home, being drunk, I got into the river for a bathe. I
was bathing and what do I see! Two men coming along the dam carrying
something black. 'Tyoo!' I shouted at them. They were scared, and cut
along as fast as they could go into the Makarev kitchen-gardens. Strike
me dead, if it wasn't the master they were carrying!"
Towards evening of the same day Psyekov and Nikolashka were arrested and
taken under guard to the district town. In the town they were put in the
prison tower. II
Twelve days passed.
It was morning. The examining magistrate, Nikolay Yermolaitch, was
sitting at a green table at home, looking through the papers, relating
to the "Klyauzov case"; Dyukovsky was pacing up and down the room
restlessly, like a wolf in a cage.
"You are convinced of the guilt of Nikolashka and Psyekov," he said,
nervously pulling at his youthful beard. "Why is it you refuse to be
convinced of the guilt of Marya Ivanovna? Haven't you evidence enough?"
"I don't say that I don't believe in it. I am convinced of it, but
somehow I can't believe it. . . . There is no real evidence. It's all
theoretical, as it were. . . . Fanaticism and one thing and another. . .
."
"And you must have an axe and bloodstained sheets! . . . You lawyers!
Well, I will prove it to you then! Do give up your slip-shod attitude to
the psychological aspect of the case. Your Marya Ivanovna ought to be in
Siberia! I'll prove it. If theoretical proof is not enough for you, I
have something material. . . . It will show you how right my theory is!
Only let me go about a little!"
"What are you talking about?"
"The Swedish match! Have you forgotten? I haven't forgotten it! I'll
find out who struck it in the murdered man's room! It was not struck by
Nikolashka, nor by Psyekov, neither of whom turned out to have matches
when searched, but a third person, that is Marya Ivanovna. And I will
prove it! . . . Only let me drive about the district, make some
inquiries. . . ."
"Oh, very well, sit down. . . . Let us proceed to the examination."
Dyukovsky sat down to the table, and thrust his long nose into the
papers.
"Bring in Nikolay Tetchov!" cried the examining magistrate.
Nikolashka was brought in. He was pale and thin as a chip. He was
trembling.
"Tetchov!" began Tchubikov. "In 1879 you were convicted of theft and
condemned to a term of imprisonment. In 1882 you were condemned for
theft a second time, and a second time sent to prison . . . We know all
about it. . . ."
A look of surprise came up into Nikolashka's face. The examining
magistrate's omniscience amazed him, but soon wonder was replaced by an
expression of extreme distress. He broke into sobs, and asked leave to
go to wash, and calm himself. He was led out.
"Bring in Psyekov!" said the examining magistrate.
Psyekov was led in. The young man's face had greatly changed during
those twelve days. He was thin, pale, and wasted. There was a look of
apathy in his eyes.
"Sit down, Psyekov," said Tchubikov. "I hope that to-day you will be
sensible and not persist in lying as on other occasions. All this time
you have denied your participation in the murder of Klyauzov, in spite
of the mass of evidence against you. It is senseless. Confession is some
mitigation of guilt. To-day I am talking to you for the last time. If
you don't confess to-day, to-morrow it will be too late. Come, tell us.
. . ."
"I know nothing, and I don't know your evidence," whispered Psyekov.
"That's useless! Well then, allow me to tell you how it happened. On
Saturday evening, you were sitting in Klyauzov's bedroom drinking vodka
and beer with him." (Dyukovsky riveted his eyes on Psyekov's face, and
did not remove them during the whole monologue.) "Nikolay was waiting
upon you. Between twelve and one Mark Ivanitch told you he wanted to go
to bed. He always did go to bed at that time. While he was taking off
his boots and giving you some instructions regarding the estate, Nikolay
and you at a given signal seized your intoxicated master and flung him
back upon the bed. One of you sat on his feet, the other on his head. At
that moment the lady, you know who, in a black dress, who had arranged
with you beforehand the part she would take in the crime, came in from
the passage. She picked up the pillow, and proceeded to smother him with
it. During the struggle, the light went out. The woman took a box of
Swedish matches out of her pocket and lighted the candle. Isn't that
right? I see from your face that what I say is true. Well, to proceed. .
. . Having smothered him, and being convinced that he had ceased to
breathe, Nikolay and you dragged him out of window and put him down near
the burdocks. Afraid that he might regain consciousness, you struck him
with something sharp. Then you carried him, and laid him for some time
under a lilac bush. After resting and considering a little, you carried
him . . . lifted him over the hurdle. . . . Then went along the road. .
. Then comes the dam; near the dam you were frightened by a peasant. But
what is the matter with you?"
Psyekov, white as a sheet, got up, staggering.
"I am suffocating!" he said. "Very well. . . . So be it. . . . Only I
must go. . . . Please."
Psyekov was led out.
"At last he has admitted it!" said Tchubikov, stretching at his ease.
"He has given himself away! How neatly I caught him there."
"And he didn't deny the woman in black!" said Dyukovsky, laughing. "I am
awfully worried over that Swedish match, though! I can't endure it any
longer. Good-bye! I am going!"
Dyukovsky put on his cap and went off. Tchubikov began interrogating
Akulka.
Akulka declared that she knew nothing about it. . . .
"I have lived with you and with nobody else!" she said.
At six o'clock in the evening Dyukovsky returned. He was more excited
than ever. His hands trembled so much that he could not unbutton his
overcoat. His cheeks were burning. It was evident that he had not come
back without news.
"Veni, vidi, vici!" he cried, dashing into Tchubikov's room and sinking
into an arm-chair. "I vow on my honour, I begin to believe in my own
genius. Listen, damnation take us! Listen and wonder, old friend! It's
comic and it's sad. You have three in your grasp already . . . haven't
you? I have found a fourth murderer, or rather murderess, for it is a
woman! And what a woman! I would have given ten years of my life merely
to touch her shoulders. But . . . listen. I drove to Klyauzovka and
proceeded to describe a spiral round it. On the way I visited all the
shopkeepers and innkeepers, asking for Swedish matches. Everywhere I was
told 'No.' I have been on my round up to now. Twenty times I lost hope,
and as many times regained it. I have been on the go all day long, and
only an hour ago came upon what I was looking for. A couple of miles
from here they gave me a packet of a dozen boxes of matches. One box was
missing . . . I asked at once: 'Who bought that box?' 'So-and-so. She
took a fancy to them. . . They crackle.' My dear fellow! Nikolay
Yermolaitch! What can sometimes be done by a man who has been expelled
from a seminary and studied Gaboriau is beyond all conception! From to-
day I shall began to respect myself! . . . Ough. . . . Well, let us go!"
"Go where?"
"To her, to the fourth. . . . We must make haste, or . . . I shall
explode with impatience! Do you know who she is? You will never guess.
The young wife of our old police superintendent, Yevgraf Kuzmitch, Olga
Petrovna; that's who it is! She bought that box of matches!"
"You . . . you. . . . Are you out of your mind?"
"It's very natural! In the first place she smokes, and in the second she
was head over ears in love with Klyauzov. He rejected her love for the
sake of an Akulka. Revenge. I remember now, I once came upon them behind
the screen in the kitchen. She was cursing him, while he was smoking her
cigarette and puffing the smoke into her face. But do come along; make
haste, for it is getting dark already . . . . Let us go!"
"I have not gone so completely crazy yet as to disturb a respectable,
honourable woman at night for the sake of a wretched boy!"
"Honourable, respectable. . . . You are a rag then, not an examining
magistrate! I have never ventured to abuse you, but now you force me to
it! You rag! you old fogey! Come, dear Nikolay Yermolaitch, I entreat
you!"
The examining magistrate waved his hand in refusal and spat in disgust.
"I beg you! I beg you, not for my own sake, but in the interests of
justice! I beseech you, indeed! Do me a favour, if only for once in your
life!"
Dyukovsky fell on his knees.
"Nikolay Yermolaitch, do be so good! Call me a scoundrel, a worthless
wretch if I am in error about that woman! It is such a case, you know!
It is a case! More like a novel than a case. The fame of it will be all
over Russia. They will make you examining magistrate for particularly
important cases! Do understand, you unreasonable old man!"
The examining magistrate frowned and irresolutely put out his hand
towards his hat.
"Well, the devil take you!" he said, "let us go."
It was already dark when the examining magistrate's waggonette rolled up
to the police superintendent's door.
"What brutes we are!" said Tchubikov, as he reached for the bell. "We
are disturbing people."
"Never mind, never mind, don't be frightened. We will say that one of
the springs has broken."
Tchubikov and Dyukovsky were met in the doorway by a tall, plump woman
of three and twenty, with eyebrows as black as pitch and full red lips.
It was Olga Petrovna herself.
"Ah, how very nice," she said, smiling all over her face. "You are just
in time for supper. My Yevgraf Kuzmitch is not at home. . . . He is
staying at the priest's. But we can get on without him. Sit down. Have
you come from an inquiry?"
"Yes. . . . We have broken one of our springs, you know," began
Tchubikov, going into the drawing-room and sitting down in an easy-
chair.
"Take her by surprise at once and overwhelm her," Dyukovsky whispered to
him.
"A spring .. . er . . . yes. . . . We just drove up. . . ."
"Overwhelm her, I tell you! She will guess if you go drawing it out."
"Oh, do as you like, but spare me," muttered Tchubikov, getting up and
walking to the window. "I can't! You cooked the mess, you eat it!"
"Yes, the spring," Dyukovsky began, going up to the superintendent's
wife and wrinkling his long nose. "We have not come in to . . . er-er-er
. . . supper, nor to see Yevgraf Kuzmitch. We have come to ask you,
madam, where is Mark Ivanovitch whom you have murdered?"
"What? What Mark Ivanovitch?" faltered the superintendent's wife, and
her full face was suddenly in one instant suffused with crimson. "I . .
. don't understand."
"I ask you in the name of the law! Where is Klyauzov? We know all about
it!"
"Through whom?" the superintendent's wife asked slowly, unable to face
Dyukovsky's eyes.
"Kindly inform us where he is!"
"But how did you find out? Who told you?"
"We know all about it. I insist in the name of the law."
The examining magistrate, encouraged by the lady's confusion, went up to
her.
"Tell us and we will go away. Otherwise we . . ."
"What do you want with him?"
"What is the object of such questions, madam? We ask you for
information. You are trembling, confused. . . . Yes, he has been
murdered, and if you will have it, murdered by you! Your accomplices
have betrayed you!"
The police superintendent's wife turned pale.
"Come along," she said quietly, wringing her hands. "He is hidden in the
bath-house. Only for God's sake, don't tell my husband! I implore you!
It would be too much for him."
The superintendent's wife took a big key from the wall, and led her
visitors through the kitchen and the passage into the yard. It was dark
in the yard. There was a drizzle of fine rain. The superintendent's wife
went on ahead. Tchubikov and Dyukovsky strode after her through the long
grass, breathing in the smell of wild hemp and slops, which made a
squelching sound under their feet. It was a big yard. Soon there were no
more pools of slops, and their feet felt ploughed land. In the darkness
they saw the silhouette of trees, and among the trees a little house
with a crooked chimney.
"This is the bath-house," said the superintendent's wife, "but, I
implore you, do not tell anyone."
Going up to the bath-house, Tchubikov and Dyukovsky saw a large padlock
on the door.
"Get ready your candle-end and matches," Tchubikov whispered to his
assistant.
The superintendent's wife unlocked the padlock and let the visitors into
the bath-house. Dyukovsky struck a match and lighted up the entry. In
the middle of it stood a table. On the table, beside a podgy little
samovar, was a soup tureen with some cold cabbage-soup in it, and a dish
with traces of some sauce on it.
"Go on!"
They went into the next room, the bath-room. There, too, was a table. On
the table there stood a big dish of ham, a bottle of vodka, plates,
knives and forks.
"But where is he . . . where's the murdered man?"
"He is on the top shelf," whispered the superintendent's wife, turning
paler than ever and trembling.
Dyukovsky took the candle-end in his hand and climbed up to the upper
shelf. There he saw a long, human body, lying motionless on a big
feather bed. The body emitted a faint snore. . . .
"They have made fools of us, damn it all!" Dyukovsky cried. "This is not
he! It is some living blockhead lying here. Hi! who are you, damnation
take you!"
The body drew in its breath with a whistling sound and moved. Dyukovsky
prodded it with his elbow. It lifted up its arms, stretched, and raised
its head.
"Who is that poking?" a hoarse, ponderous bass voice inquired. "What do
you want?"
Dyukovsky held the candle-end to the face of the unknown and uttered a
shriek. In the crimson nose, in the ruffled, uncombed hair, in the
pitch-black moustaches of which one was jauntily twisted and pointed
insolently towards the ceiling, he recognised Cornet Klyauzov.
"You. . . . Mark . . . Ivanitch! Impossible!"
The examining magistrate looked up and was dumbfoundered.
"It is I, yes. . . . And it's you, Dyukovsky! What the devil do you want
here? And whose ugly mug is that down there? Holy Saints, it's the
examining magistrate! How in the world did you come here?"
Klyauzov hurriedly got down and embraced Tchubikov. Olga Petrovna
whisked out of the door.
"However did you come? Let's have a drink!--dash it all! Tra-ta-ti-to-tom
. . . . Let's have a drink! Who brought you here, though? How did you
get to know I was here? It doesn't matter, though! Have a drink!"
Klyauzov lighted the lamp and poured out three glasses of vodka.
"The fact is, I don't understand you," said the examining magistrate,
throwing out his hands. "Is it you, or not you?"
"Stop that. . . . Do you want to give me a sermon? Don't trouble
yourself! Dyukovsky boy, drink up your vodka! Friends, let us pass the .
. . What are you staring at . . . ? Drink!"
"All the same, I can't understand," said the examining magistrate,
mechanically drinking his vodka. "Why are you here?"
"Why shouldn't I be here, if I am comfortable here?"
Klyauzov sipped his vodka and ate some ham.
"I am staying with the superintendent's wife, as you see. In the wilds
among the ruins, like some house goblin. Drink! I felt sorry for her,
you know, old man! I took pity on her, and, well, I am living here in
the deserted bath-house, like a hermit. . . . I am well fed. Next week I
am thinking of moving on. . . . I've had enough of it. . . ."
"Inconceivable!" said Dyukovsky.
"What is there inconceivable in it?"
"Inconceivable! For God's sake, how did your boot get into the garden?"
"What boot?"
"We found one of your boots in the bedroom and the other in the garden."
"And what do you want to know that for? It is not your business. But do
drink, dash it all. Since you have waked me up, you may as well drink!
There's an interesting tale about that boot, my boy. I didn't want to
come to Olga's. I didn't feel inclined, you know, I'd had a drop too
much. . . . She came under the window and began scolding me. . . . You
know how women . . . as a rule. Being drunk, I up and flung my boot at
her. Ha-ha! . . . 'Don't scold,' I said. She clambered in at the window,
lighted the lamp, and gave me a good drubbing, as I was drunk. I have
plenty to eat here. . . . Love, vodka, and good things! But where are
you off to? Tchubikov, where are you off to?"
The examining magistrate spat on the floor and walked out of the bath-
house. Dyukovsky followed him with his head hanging. Both got into the
waggonette in silence and drove off. Never had the road seemed so long
and dreary. Both were silent. Tchubikov was shaking with anger all the
way. Dyukovsky hid his face in his collar as though he were afraid the
darkness and the drizzling rain might read his shame on his face.
On getting home the examining magistrate found the doctor, Tyutyuev,
there. The doctor was sitting at the table and heaving deep sighs as he
turned over the pages of the Neva.
"The things that are going on in the world," he said, greeting the
examining magistrate with a melancholy smile. "Austria is at it again .
. . and Gladstone, too, in a way. . . ."
Tchubikov flung his hat under the table and began to tremble.
"You devil of a skeleton! Don't bother me! I've told you a thousand
times over, don't bother me with your politics! It's not the time for
politics! And as for you," he turned upon Dyukovsky and shook his fist
at him, "as for you. . . . I'll never forget it, as long as I live!"
"But the Swedish match, you know! How could I tell. . . ."
"Choke yourself with your match! Go away and don't irritate me, or
goodness knows what I shall do to you. Don't let me set eyes on you."
Dyukovsky heaved a sigh, took his hat, and went out.
"I'll go and get drunk!" he decided, as he went out of the gate, and he
sauntered dejectedly towards the tavern.
When the superintendent's wife got home from the bath-house she found
her husband in the drawing-room.
"What did the examining magistrate come about?" asked her husband.
"He came to say that they had found Klyauzov. Only fancy, they found him
staying with another man's wife."
"Ah, Mark Ivanitch, Mark Ivanitch!" sighed the police superintendent,
turning up his eyes. "I told you that dissipation would lead to no good!
I told you so--you wouldn't heed me!"
The Bishop and Other Stories
THE BISHOP I
THE evening service was being celebrated on the eve of Palm Sunday in
the Old Petrovsky Convent. When they began distributing the palm it was
close upon ten o'clock, the candles were burning dimly, the wicks wanted
snuffing; it was all in a sort of mist. In the twilight of the church
the crowd seemed heaving like the sea, and to Bishop Pyotr, who had been
unwell for the last three days, it seemed that all the faces--old and
young, men's and women's--were alike, that everyone who came up for the
palm had the same expression in his eyes. In the mist he could not see
the doors; the crowd kept moving and looked as though there were no end
to it. The female choir was singing, a nun was reading the prayers for
the day.
How stifling, how hot it was! How long the service went on! Bishop Pyotr
was tired. His breathing was laboured and rapid, his throat was parched,
his shoulders ached with weariness, his legs were trembling. And it
disturbed him unpleasantly when a religious maniac uttered occasional
shrieks in the gallery. And then all of a sudden, as though in a dream
or delirium, it seemed to the bishop as though his own mother Marya
Timofyevna, whom he had not seen for nine years, or some old woman just
like his mother, came up to him out of the crowd, and, after taking a
palm branch from him, walked away looking at him all the while good-
humouredly with a kind, joyful smile until she was lost in the crowd.
And for some reason tears flowed down his face. There was peace in his
heart, everything was well, yet he kept gazing fixedly towards the left
choir, where the prayers were being read, where in the dusk of evening
you could not recognize anyone, and--wept. Tears glistened on his face
and on his beard. Here someone close at hand was weeping, then someone
else farther away, then others and still others, and little by little
the church was filled with soft weeping. And a little later, within five
minutes, the nuns' choir was singing; no one was weeping and everything
was as before.
Soon the service was over. When the bishop got into his carriage to
drive home, the gay, melodious chime of the heavy, costly bells was
filling the whole garden in the moonlight. The white walls, the white
crosses on the tombs, the white birch-trees and black shadows, and the
far-away moon in the sky exactly over the convent, seemed now living
their own life, apart and incomprehensible, yet very near to man. It was
the beginning of April, and after the warm spring day it turned cool;
there was a faint touch of frost, and the breath of spring could be felt
in the soft, chilly air. The road from the convent to the town was
sandy, the horses had to go at a walking pace, and on both sides of the
carriage in the brilliant, peaceful moonlight there were people trudging
along home from church through the sand. And all was silent, sunk in
thought; everything around seemed kindly, youthful, akin,
everything--trees and sky and even the moon, and one longed to think that
so it would be always.
At last the carriage drove into the town and rumbled along the principal
street. The shops were already shut, but at Erakin's, the millionaire
shopkeeper's, they were trying the new electric lights, which flickered
brightly, and a crowd of people were gathered round. Then came wide,
dark, deserted streets, one after another; then the highroad, the open
country, the fragrance of pines. And suddenly there rose up before the
bishop's eyes a white turreted wall, and behind it a tall belfry in the
full moonlight, and beside it five shining, golden cupolas: this was the
Pankratievsky Monastery, in which Bishop Pyotr lived. And here, too,
high above the monastery, was the silent, dreamy moon. The carriage
drove in at the gate, crunching over the sand; here and there in the
moonlight there were glimpses of dark monastic figures, and there was
the sound of footsteps on the flag-stones. . . .
"You know, your holiness, your mamma arrived while you were away," the
lay brother informed the bishop as he went into his cell.
"My mother? When did she come?"
"Before the evening service. She asked first where you were and then she
went to the convent."
"Then it was her I saw in the church, just now! Oh, Lord!"
And the bishop laughed with joy.
"She bade me tell your holiness," the lay brother went on, "that she
would come to-morrow. She had a little girl with her--her grandchild, I
suppose. They are staying at Ovsyannikov's inn."
"What time is it now?"
"A little after eleven."
"Oh, how vexing!"