I have said that my novel is a story of crime, and now, when the case
of the murder of Olga Urbenin is complicated by another murder, in
many ways mysterious and incomprehensible, the reader is entitled to
expect that the novel will enter upon its most interesting and
exciting phase. The discovery of the criminal, and the reasons for his
crime, offer a wide field for the display of ingenuity and
sharp-wittedness. Here evil will and cunning are at war with knowledge
and skill, a war that is interesting in all its manifestations. . . .
I led the war and the reader has the right to expect me to describe
the means that led to my victory, and he is doubtless expecting all
sorts of detective finesses such as shine in the novels of Gaboriau
and our Shklyarevsky; and I am ready to satisfy the reader's
expectations, but . . . one of the chief characters leaves the field
of battle without waiting for the end of the combat—he is not made a
participator in the victory; all that he had done so far was lost for
him—and he goes over into the crowd of spectators. That character in
the drama is your humble servant. On the day following the above
conversation with Urbenin I received an invitation, or, more correctly
speaking, an order to hand in my resignation. The tittle-tattle and
talk of our district gossips had done its work. . . . The murder in
the guard-house, the evidence that the Assistant Prosecutor had
collected, unknown to me, from the servants, and, if the reader still
remembers it, the blow I had dealt a muzhik on the head with an oar on
the occasion of one of our former revels, had all greatly contributed
to my dismissal. The muzhik started the case. All sorts of alterations
took place. In the course of two days I had to hand over the case of
the murder to the magistrate for specially important affairs.
Thanks to the talk and the newspaper reports, the entire attention of
the Prosecutor was aroused. The Prosecutor himself came to the Count's
estate every other day and assisted at the examinations. The official
reports of our doctors were sent to the medical board and higher.
There was even a question of having the bodies exhumed and having a
fresh post-mortem examination, which, by the way, would have led to
nothing.
Urbenin was taken a couple of times to the chief town of the
government to have his mental capacities tested, and both times he was
found quite normal. I was given the part of witness.* The new
examining magistrates were so carried away by their zeal that even my
Polycarp was called up as witness.
* A part that was certainly better suited to M. Kamyshev than the
part of examining magistrate: in the Urbenin case he could not be
examining magistrate.—A. Ch.
A year after my resignation, when I was living in Moscow, I received a
summons to appear at the trial of the Urbenin case. I was glad of the
opportunity of seeing again the places to which I was drawn by habit,
and I went. The Count, who was residing in Petersburg, did not go
there, but sent a medical certificate instead.
The case was tried in our district town in a division of the Court of
Justice. Polugradov—that same Polugradov who cleaned his teeth four
times a day with red powder—conducted the prosecution; a certain
Smirnyaev, a tall, lean, fair-haired man with a sentimental face and
long straight hair, acted for the defence. The jury was exclusively
composed of shopkeepers and peasants, of whom only four could read and
write; the others, when they were given to read Urbenin's letters to
his wife, sweated and got confused. The chief juryman was Ivan
Dem'yanych, the shopkeeper from my village, after whom my late parrot
had been named.
When I came into the court I did not recognize Urbenin; he had become
quite grey, and his body had grown twenty years older. I had expected
to read on his face indifference for his fate and apathy, but I was
mistaken. Urbenin was deeply interested in the trial; he brought in an
exception against three of the jurymen, gave long explanations, and
questioned the witnesses; he absolutely denied any guilt, and he
questioned all the witnesses, who did not give evidence in his favour,
very minutely.
The witness Pshekhotsky deposed that I had had a connexion with the
late Olga.
“That's a lie!” Urbenin shouted. “He lies! I don't trust my wife, but
I trust him!”
When I gave my evidence the counsel for the defence asked me in what
relations I stood to Olga, and informed me of the evidence that
Pshekhotsky, who had on one occasion applauded me, had given. To have
spoken the truth would have been to give evidence in favour of the
accused. The more depraved the wife, the more lenient the jury is
towards the Othello-husband. I understood this. . . . On the other
hand, if I spoke the truth I would have wounded Urbenin. . . . in
hearing it he would have felt an incurable pain. . . . I thought it
better to lie.