The Collected Works of Anton Chekhov. Anton Chekhov
are not lawyers,’ he cried so that he was heard all over the guard-house. ‘They are nothing but cruel, heartless boys, without mercy either for people or truth! I know why I am confined here, I know it! By casting the blame on me they want to hide the real culprit! The Count killed her; or if it was not the Count, it was his hireling!’
When he heard that Kuz’ma had been arrested, he was at first very pleased.
‘Now the hireling has been found!’ he said to me. ‘Now he’s been found!’
But soon, when he saw he was not released and when he was informed of Kuz’ma’s testimony, he again became depressed.
‘Now I’m lost,’ he said, ‘definitely lost. In order to get out of prison this one-eyed devil will be sure sooner or later to name me and say it was I who wiped my hands in his skirts. But you yourself saw that my hands had not been wiped!’
Sooner or later our suspicions would have to be elucidated.
About the end of November of that year, when snow began to drift before my windows and the lake looked like an endless white desert, Kuz’ma asked to see me; he sent the guard to tell me he had ‘thought things over’. I ordered him to be brought to me.
‘I am very pleased that you have at last thought the matter over,’ I greeted him. it is high time to finish with this dissembling and this leading us all by the nose like little children. Well, what do you have to say?’
Kuz’ma did not answer; he stood in the middle of my room in silence, staring at me without winking… Fear shone in his eyes; his whole person showed signs of great trepidation; he was pale and trembling, and a cold perspiration poured down his face.
‘Well, speak! What have you remembered?’ I asked again.
‘Something so extraordinary, that nothing can be more wonderful,’ he said. ‘Yesterday I remembered what sort of a tie that gentleman was wearing, and this night I was thinking and remembered his face.’
‘Then who was it?’
‘I’m afraid to say, your Honour; allow me not to speak: it’s too strange and wonderful; I think I must have dreamt it or imagined it…
‘Well, what have you imagined?’
‘No, allow me not to speak. If I tell you, you’ll condemn me… Give me a little time to think, and I’ll tell you tomorrow. I’m frightened!’
‘Pshaw!’ I began to get angry. ‘Why did you trouble me if you can’t speak? Why did you come here?’
‘I thought I would tell you, but now I’m afraid. No, your Honour, please let me go… I’d rather tell you tomorrow… If I tell you, you’ll get so angry that I’d sooner go to Siberia - you’ll condemn me…’
I got angry and ordered Kuz’ma to be taken away. In-the evening of that very day, in order not to lose time and to put an end to this tiresome murder case, I went to the guard-house and tested Urbenin by telling him that Kuz’ma had named him as the murderer.
‘I expected it,’ Urbenin said with a wave of his hand, it’s all one to me…’
Solitary confinement had greatly affected Urbenin’s health; he had grown sallow and had shrunk to almost half his weight. I promised to order the guards to allow him to walk about the corridors during the daytime and even by night.
‘I’m sure there’s no fear of your trying to escape,’ I said.
Urbenin thanked me, and after my departure he walked about the corridor; his door was no longer kept locked.
On leaving him I knocked at the door behind which Kuz’ma was seated.
‘Well, have you thought it over yet?’ I asked.
‘No, sir,’ a weak voice answered. ‘Let the Prosecutor come; I will tell him, but I won’t tell you.’
‘As you like!’
The next morning it was all over.
The watchman Egor came running to me and informed me that one-eyed Kuz’ma had been found dead in his bed. I hastened to the guard-house to assure myself of the fact. The strong, big muzhik, who the day before was full of health and inventing all sorts of tales to get himself free, was stark and cold as a stone… I will not try to describe the horror the guards and I felt; it will be understood by the reader. Kuz’ma was important to me both as accuser and as witness; to the warders he was a prisoner for whose death or flight they would be severely punished… Our horror was only increased when at the post-mortem examination it was discovered that he had died a violent death… Kuz’ma had died from suffocation… Once convinced that he had been suffocated, I began to search for the culprit, and I had not long to search… He was near…
‘You scoundrel! It was not enough for you to kill your wife,’ I said, ‘but you must take the life of the man who convicted you! And you continue to act out this filthy comedy.’
Urbenin grew deadly pale and began to shake…
‘You lie!’ he cried, striking himself on the breast with his fist.
I do not lie! You shed crocodile tears at our evidence and made game of it… There were moments when I was tempted to believe you rather than the evidence… Oh, you are a good actor! But now I won’t believe you, even should blood flow from your eyes instead of these play-actor’s false tears! Admit that you killed Kuz’ma!’
‘You are either drunk or laughing at me! Sergey Petrovich, patience and submissiveness has its limits; I can bear this no longer!’
And Urbenin, with flashing eyes, struck the table with his clenched fist.
‘Yesterday I was imprudent enough to give you more liberty,’ I continued, ‘by allowing you that which no other prisoner is allowed, to walk about the corridors. And now it appears, out of gratitude you went to the door of that unfortunate Kuz’ma and suffocated a sleeping man! Do you know that you have not only killed Kuz’ma; the warders will also be ruined on your account.’
‘What have I done, good God?’ Urbenin said, seizing hold of his head.
‘Do you want the proofs? I will give them… By my orders your door was left open… The foolish warders opened the door and forgot to hide the lock… All the cells are opened with the same key… In the night you took your key and going into the corridor, you opened your neighbour’s door with it… Having smothered him, you locked the door and put the key into your own lock.’
‘Why should I smother him? Why?’
‘Because he denounced you… If yesterday I had not given you this news, he would have been alive now… It is sinful and shameful, Pëtr Egorych!’
‘Sergey Petrovich,’ the murderer suddenly said in a soft, tender voice, seizing me by the hand, ‘you are an honest and respectable man! Do not ruin and sully yourself with false suspicions and over-hasty accusations! You cannot understand how cruelly and painfully you have wounded me by casting upon my soul, which is wholly innocent, a new accusation… I am a martyr, Sergey Petrovich! You should be afraid to wrong a martyr! The time will come when you will have to beg my pardon, and that time will be soon… You can’t really want to accuse me! But this pardon will not satisfy you… Instead of assailing me so terribly with insults, it would have been better if you had questioned me in a humane -I will not say a friendly — way (you have already renounced all friendly relations). If we take this new accusation… I could tell you much. I did not sleep last night, and heard everything.’
‘What did you hear?’
‘Last night, at about two o’clock… all was dark… I heard somebody walking about the corridor very softly, and constantly touching my door… He walked up and down, and then opened my door and came in.’
‘Who was it?’
‘I don’t know; it was dark - I did not see… He stood for about