One fine morning, just as I was sealing up a parcel which I was about
to send by the guard, who was to take Urbenin to the town, where he
was to be imprisoned in the castle-prison, I heard a terrible noise.
Looking out of the window I saw an amusing sight: some dozen strong
young fellows were dragging one-eyed Kuz'ma out of the servants'
kitchen.
Kuz'ma pale and dishevelled had his feet firmly planted on the ground,
and being deprived of the use of his arms, butted at his adversaries
with his large head.
“Your Honour, please go there!” Il'ya said to me, in great alarm, “he
. . . does not want to come!”
“Who does not want to come?”
“The murderer.”
“What murderer?”
“Kuz'ma. . . . He committed the murder, your Honour . . . Pëtr
Egorych is suffering unjustly. . . . By God, sir.”
I went into the yard and walked towards the servant's kitchen, where
Kuz'ma, who had torn himself out of the strong arms of his opponents,
was administering cuffs to right and left.
“What's the matter?” I asked, when I came up to the crowd.
And I was told something very strange and unexpected.
“Your Honour, Kuz'ma killed her!”
“They lie!” Kuz'ma shouted. “May God kill me if they don't lie!”
“But why did you, son of a devil, wash off the blood, if your
conscience is clear? Stop a moment, his Honour will examine all this!”
The breaker-in, Trifon, riding past the river, saw Kuz'ma washing
something carefully in the water. At first Trifon thought he was
washing linen, but looking more attentively he saw it was a poddevka*
and a waistcoat. He thought this strange: garments of cloth are not
washed.
* A sleeveless overcoat worn by coachmen and peasants.
“What are you doing?” Trifon called to him.
Kuz'ma became confused. Looking more attentively, Trifon noticed brown
spots on the poddevka.
“I guessed at once that it must be blood . . . I went into the
kitchen and told our people; they watched, and saw him at night
hanging out the poddevka to dry. Of course they took fright. Why
should he wash it, if he is not guilty? He must have something on his
soul, he is trying to hide. . . . We thought and thought, and decided
to bring him to your Honour. . . . We pull him along, and he backs and
spits into our eyes. Why should he back if he is not guilty?”
From further examination it appeared that just before the murder, at
the time when the Count and his guests were sitting in the clearing,
drinking tea, Kuz'ma had gone into the forest. He had not aided in
carrying Olga, and therefore could not have got dirtied with blood at
that time.
When he was brought to my room Kuz'ma was so excited that at first he
could not utter a word; turning up the white of his single eye he
crossed himself and mumbled oaths.
“Be calm; tell me what you know and I will let you go,” I said to him.
Kuz'ma fell at my feet, stammered and calling on God.
“May I perish if it's I. . . . May neither my father nor my
mother. . . . Your Honour! May God destroy my soul. . . .”
“You went into the forest?”
“That's quite true, sir, I went. . . . I had served cognac to the
guests and, forgive me, I had tippled a little; it went to my head,
and I wanted to lie down; I went, lay down, and fell asleep. . . . But
who killed her, or how I don't know, so help me God. . . . It's the
truth I'm telling you!”
“But why did you wash off the blood?”
“I was afraid that people might imagine . . . that I might be taken
as a witness. . . .”
“How did the blood come on to your poddevka?”
“I don't know, your Honour.”
“How is it possible you can't know? Isn't the poddevka yours?”
“Yes, certainly it's mine, but I don't know: I saw the blood when I
woke up again.”
“So, then, I suppose you dirtied the poddevka with blood in your
sleep?”
“Just so. . . .”
“Well, my man, go and think it over. . . . You're talking nonsense;
think well and tell me to-morrow. . . . Go!”
The following morning, when I awoke, I was informed that Kuz'ma wanted
to speak to me. I ordered him to be brought in.
“Have you bethought yourself?” I asked him.
“Just so, I've bethought myself. . . .”
“How did the blood get on your poddevka?”
“Your Honour, I remember as if in a dream: I remember something, as in
a fog, but if it is true or not I can't say.”
“What do you remember?”
Kuz'ma turned up his eye, thought, and said:
“Extraordinary . . . it's like in a dream or a fog. . . . I lay upon
the grass drunk and dozing. I was not quite asleep. . . . I only heard
somebody was passing, trampling heavily with his feet. . . . I opened
my eyes and saw, as if I was unconscious, or in a dream; a gentleman
came up to me, he bends over me and wiped his hands in my
skirts. . . . he wiped them in my poddevka, and then rubbed his hand
on my waistcoat. . . . so.”
“What gentleman was it?”
“I don't know; I only remember it was not a muzhik, but a
gentleman. . . . in gentleman's clothes; but what gentleman it was,
what sort of face he had I can't remember at all.”
“What was the colour of his clothes?”
“Who can say! Perhaps it was white, perhaps black. . . . I only
remember it was a gentleman, and that's all I can remember. . . . Akh,
yes, I can remember! When he bent down and wiped his hands he said:
‘Drunken swine!’”
“You dreamt this?”
“I don't know . . . perhaps I dreamt it. . . . But then where did the
blood come from?”
“Was the gentleman you saw like Pëtr Egorych?”
“It appears to me he wasn't . . . but perhaps it was. . . . But he
would not swear and call people swine.”
“Try to remember. . . . Go, sit down and think. . . . Perhaps you may
succeed in remembering.”
“I'll try.”