The Essential Chekhov: Plays, Short Stories, Novel & Biography. Anton Chekhov
dies… In your novel you do not say a word about the impression that her death made on you… In this I see caution: you do not forget to write about the number of glasses you emptied, but such an important event as the death of “the girl in red” is passed over in the novel without the slightest mention… Why?’
‘Go on, go on….’
‘You made all your investigations in a most slovenly way… It is hard to believe that you, a clever and very cunning man, did not do so purposely. All your investigations remind one of a letter purposely written with grammatical errors. Why did you not examine the scene of the crime? Not because you forgot to do so, or considered it unimportant, but because you waited for the rain to wash away your traces. You write little about the examination of the servants. Thus Kuz’ma was not examined by you until he was caught washing his poddevka… You evidently had no reason to involve him in the affair. Why did you not question any of the guests, who had been feasting with you in the clearing? They had seen the blood stains on Urbenin, and had heard Olga’s shriek, - they ought to have been examined. But you did not do it, because one of them might have remembered at his examination that shortly before the murder you had suddenly gone into the forest and been lost. Afterwards they probably were questioned, but this circumstance had already been forgotten by them….’
‘Very clever!’ Kamyshev said, rubbing his hands; ‘go on, go on!’
‘Is it possible that what has already been said is not enough for you?… To prove conclusively that Olga was murdered by you, and nobody else, I must remind you that you were her lover, whom she had jilted for a man you despised! A husband can kill from jealousy. I presume a lover can do so, too… Now let us return to Kuz’ma… To judge by his last interrogation, that took place on the eve of his death, he had you in mind; you had wiped your hands on his poddevka, and you had called him a swine… If it had not been you, why did you interrupt your examination at the most interesting point? Why did you not ask about the colour of the murderer’s necktie, when Kuz’ma had informed you he had remembered what the colour was? Why did you relax the guard on Urbenin just when Kuz’ma remembered the name of the murderer? Why not before or after? It was evident you required a man who might walk about the corridors at night… And so you killed Kuz’ma, fearing that he would denounce you.’
‘Well, enough!’ Kamyshev said laughing. ‘That will do! You are in such a passion, and have grown so pale that it seems as if at any moment you might faint. Do not continue. You are right. I really did kill them.’
This was followed by a silence. I paced the room from corner to corner. Kamyshev did the same.
‘I killed them!’ Kamyshev continued. ‘You’ve found out - good luck to you. Not many will have that success. Most of your readers will accuse Urbenin, and be amazed at my magisterial cleverness and acumen.’
At that moment my assistant came into the office and interrupted our conversation. Noticing that I was occupied and excited he hovered for a moment around my writing-table, looked at Kamyshev, and left the room. When he had gone Kamyshev went to the window and began to breathe on the glass.
‘Eight years have already passed since then,’ he began again, after a short silence, ‘and for eight years I have borne this secret within me. But it is impossible for a human being to keep such a secret; it is impossible to know without torment what the rest of mankind does not know. For all these eight years I have felt myself a martyr. It was not my conscience that tormented me, no! Conscience is a thing apart… and I don’t pay much attention to it. It can easily be stifled by rationalizing about its flexibility. When reason does not work, I smother it with wine and women. With women I have my former success - this I only mention by the way. But I was tormented by something else. The whole time I thought it strange that people should look upon me as an ordinary man. During all these eight years not a single living soul has looked at me searchingly; it seemed strange to me that there was no need for me to hide. A terrible secret is concealed in me, and still I walk about the streets. I go to dinner-parties. I flirt with women! For a man who is a criminal such a position is unnatural and painful. I would not be tormented if I had to hide and dissemble. Psychosis, baten’ka! At last I was seized by a kind of passion… I suddenly wanted to pour out my feelings in some way on everybody, to shout my secret aloud, though I care nothing for what people think… to do something extraordinary. And so I wrote this novel — an indictment, which only the witless will have any difficulty in recognizing me as a man with a secret… There is not a page that does not give the key to the puzzle. Is that not true? You doubtless understood it at once. When I wrote it I took into consideration the intelligence of the average reader….’
We were again disturbed. Andrey entered the room bringing two glasses of tea on a tray… I hastened to send him away.
‘Now it is easier for me,’ Kamyshev said smiling, ‘now you look upon me not as an ordinary man, but as a man with a secret… But… It is already three o’clock, and somebody is waiting for me in the cab….’
‘Stay, put down your hat… You have told me what made you take up authorship, now tell me how you murdered.’
‘Do you want to know that in addition to what you have read? Very well. I killed in a state of momentary aberration. Nowadays people even smoke and drink tea under the influence of aberration. In your excitement you have taken up my glass instead of your own, and you are smoking more than usual… Life is all aberration… so it appears to me… When I went into the wood my thoughts were far away from murder; I went there with only one object: to find Olga and continue to torment and scold her… When I am drunk I always feel the necessity to quarrel… I met her about two hundred paces from the clearing… She was standing under a tree and looking pensively at the sky… I called to her… When she saw me she smiled and stretched out her arms to me….
‘ “Don’t scold me, I’m so unhappy!” she said.
‘That night she looked so beautiful, that I, drunk as I was, forgot everything in the world and pressed her in my arms… She swore to me that she had never loved anybody but me… and that was true… she really loved me… and in the very midst of her assurances she suddenly took it into her head to say something terrible: “How unhappy I am! If I had not got married to Urbenin, I might now have married the Count!” All that was boiling in my breast bubbled over. I seized the vile little creature by the shoulder and threw her to the ground as you throw a ball. My rage reached its peak… Well… I finished her… I just finished her… You understand about Kuz’ma….’
I glanced at Kamyshev. On his face I could neither read repentance nor regret. ‘I just finished her’ was said as easily as ‘I just had a smoke.’ In my turn I also experienced a feeling of wrath and loathing… I turned away.
‘And Urbenin is in penal servitude?’ I asked quietly.
‘Yes… I heard he had died on the way, but that is not certain… What then?’
‘What then? An innocent man is suffering and you ask “What then?’
‘But what am I to do? Go and confess?’
‘I should think so.’
‘Well, let us suppose it! I have nothing against taking Urbenin’s place, but I won’t do it voluntarily… Let them take me if they want, but I won’t give myself up. Why did they not take me when I was in their hands? At Olga’s funeral I wept so long, and had such hysterics that even a blind man should have known the truth… It’s not my fault that they are stupid.’
‘You are odious to me.’
‘That is natural… I am odious to myself….’
There was silence again… I opened the cash-book and began mechanically to count the figures… Kamyshev took up his hat.
‘I see you feel stifled by my presence,’ he said. ‘By-the-by, don’t you want to see Count Karnéev. There he is sitting in the cab!’
I went up to the window and glanced at him… Sitting in the cab with his back towards us sat a small stooping figure, in a shabby hat and a faded collar. It was