We heard the roar of the lake. . . .
The last act of the drama was just beginning, and two of the actors
were driving to see a harrowing sight.
“Well, and what do you think awaits us?” I asked dear Pavel Ivanovich.
“I can't imagine. . . . I don't know. . . .”
“I also don't know. . . .”
“Hamlet once regretted that the Lord of heaven and earth had forbidden
the sin of suicide; in like manner I regret that fate has made me a
doctor. . . . I regret it deeply!”
“I fear that, in my turn, I must regret that I am an examining
magistrate,” I said. “If the Count has not made a mistake and
confounded murder with suicide, and if Olga has really been murdered,
my poor nerves will have much to suffer!”
“You can refuse this affair!”
I looked inquiringly at Pavel Ivanovich, but, of course, owing to the
darkness, I could see nothing. . . . How could he know that I could
refuse this affair? I was Olga's lover, but who knew it, with the
exception of Olga herself and perhaps also Pshekhotsky, who had
favoured me once with applause?
“Why do you think I can refuse?” I asked “Screw.”
“You could fall ill, or tender your resignation. All this is not
dishonourable, because there is somebody to take your place. A doctor
is placed in quite other conditions.”
“Only that?” I thought.
Our carriage, after a long, wearisome drive over the clayey roads
stopped at last before the porch. Two windows just above the porch
were brightly illuminated Through the one on the right side, which was
in Olga's room, a dim light issued. All the other windows looked like
black spots. On the stairs we met the Scops-Owl. She looked at me with
her piercing little eyes, and her wrinkled face became more wrinkled
in an evil, mocking smile.
Her eyes seemed to say “You'll have a great surprise!”
She probably thought we had come to carouse, and we did not know there
was grief in the house.
“Let me draw your attention to this,” I said to Pavil Ivanovich, as I
pulled the cap off the old woman's head and exposed her completely
bare pate. “This old witch is ninety years old, my good soul. If some
day you and I had to make a post-mortem examination of her, we should
arrive at very different conclusions. You would find senile atrophy of
the brain, and I would assure you that she was the cleverest and the
most cunning creature in the whole district. . . . The devil in
petticoats!”
I was astounded when I entered the ballroom. The picture I saw there
was quite unexpected. All the chairs and sofas were occupied by
people. . . . Groups of people were standing about in the corners and
near the windows. . . . Where had they all come from? If anybody had
told me I would meet these people there, I would have laughed at him.
Their presence was so improbable and out of place in the Count's house
at that time, when in one of the rooms Olga was either dying or
already lying dead. They were the gipsy chorus of the chief gipsy
Karpov from the restaurant “London”; the same chorus which is known to
the reader from one of the first chapters of this book.
When I entered the room my old friend Tina, having recognized me, left
one of the groups and came towards me with a cry of joy. A smile
spread over her pale and dark complexioned cheeks when I gave her my
hand, and tears rose to her eyes when she wanted to tell me
something. . . . Tears prevented her from speaking, and I was not able
to obtain a single word from her. I turned to the other gipsies, and
they explained their presence in the house in this way. In the morning
the Count had sent them a telegram demanding that the whole chorus
should be at the Count's estate without fail by nine o'clock that
evening. In execution of this order they had taken the train and had
been in this hall by eight o'clock.
“We had thought to afford pleasure to his Excellency and his
guests. . . . We know so many new songs! . . . And suddenly. . . .”
“And suddenly a muzhik arrived on horseback, with the news that a
brutal murder had been committed at the shooting party and with the
order to prepare a bed for Olga Nikolaevna. The muzhik was not
believed, because he was as drunk as a swine, but when a noise was
heard on the stairs and a black figure was borne through the dancing
hall, there was no more possibility to doubt. . . .”
“And now we don't know what to do! We can't remain here. . . . When
the priest comes it is time for gay people to depart. . . . Besides,
all the chorus girls are alarmed and crying. . . . They can't be in
the same house with a corpse. . . . We must go away, but they won't
give us horses! His Excellency the Count is lying ill in bed and will
not see anybody, and the servants only laugh at us when we ask for
horses. . . . How can we go on foot in such weather and on such a dark
night? The servants are in general terribly rude! When we asked for a
samovar for our ladies they sent us to the devil. . . .”
All these complaints ended in tearful requests to my magnanimity.
Could I not obtain vehicles to enable them to depart from this
“accursed” house?
“If the horses are not in the paddocks, and the coachmen have not been
sent somewhere, you shall get away,” I said. “I'll give the
order. . . .”
The poor people, dressed out in their burlesque costumes, and
accustomed to coquet with their swaggering manners, looked very
awkward with their sober countenances and undecided poses. My promise
to get them sent to the station somewhat encouraged them. The whispers
of the men turned into loud talk, and the women ceased crying.