The Essential Chekhov: Plays, Short Stories, Novel & Biography. Anton Chekhov
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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: such clothes are not usually washed.
‘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 were dragging him to you, but he keeps backing away and spitting in our eyes. Why should he back away 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 helped in carrying Olga, and therefore could not have got blood on his clothes by this means.
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, stammering and calling on God.
‘May I perish if I had anything to do with it… 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 get on your poddevka?’
‘I don’t know, your Honour.’
‘Why don’t you 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?’
‘I suppose so…’
‘Well, my man, go and think it over… You’re talking nonsense; think well and tell me tomorrow… 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 thought it over?’ I asked him.
‘Indeed, I have…’
‘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 is it you remember?’
Kuz’ma turned up his eye, thought, and said:
‘Extraordinary… it’s like a dream or a fog… I lay upon the grass drunk and dozing. I was not quite asleep… Then I heard somebody 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 bent over me and wiped his hands in my skirts… He wiped them in my poddevka, and then rubbed his hands 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 white, perhaps black… I only remember it was a gentleman, and that’s all I can remember… Ach, 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?’
‘Not so far as I can tell… 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.’
CHAPTER XXXI
The unexpected eruption of one-eyed Kuz’ma into this almost finished story confused things most dreadfully. I was quite bewildered, and did not know what to think about Kuz’ma’s evidence. He denied any involvement, and the preliminary investigations were against his guilt. Olga had been murdered not from motives of greed; according to the doctors ‘it was probable’ that no attempt against her honour had been made; the only possible explanation if Kuz’ma had killed her was that he had done so for lust, or for money. He might have been drunk, or have strangled her in the course of an attack. But none of this tallied with the setting of the murder.
But if Kuz’ma was not guilty, why had he not explained the presence of blood on his poddevka, and why had he invented dreams and hallucinations? Why had he implicated this gentleman, whom he had seen and heard, but had forgotten so entirely that he could not even remember the colour of his clothes?
Polugradov hurried back post haste.
‘Now you see, sir!’ he said, ‘if you had examined the scene of the crime at once, believe me all would have been plain now, as plain as a pikestaff! If you had examined all the servants at once, we could then have known who had carried Olga Nikolaevna and who had not. And now we can’t even find out at what distance from the scene of the crime this drunkard was lying!’
He cross-questioned Kuz’ma for about two hours, but could get nothing new out of him; he only said that while half asleep he had seen a gentleman, that the gentleman had wiped his hands on the skirts of his poddevka and had cursed him for a ‘drunken swine’, but he could not say who this gentleman was, nor what his face and clothes were like.
‘How much cognac did you drink?’
‘I finished half a bottle.’
‘Perhaps it was not cognac?’
‘No, sir, it was real fine champagne.’
‘So you even know the names of wines!’ the Assistant Prosecutor said, laughing.
‘How should I not know them? I’ve served my masters for more than thirty years, thank God! I’ve had time to learn…’
For some reason the Assistant Prosecutor required that Kuz’ma should be confronted with Urbenin… Kuz’ma looked for a long time at Urbenin, shook his head and said:
‘No, I can’t remember… perhaps it was Pëtr Egorych, perhaps not… Who can say?’
Polugradov shrugged his shoulders and drove away, leaving me to choose which was the right one of the two murderers.
The investigations were protracted… Urbenin and Kuz’ma were imprisoned in the guard-house of the village in which I lived. Poor Pëtr Egorych lost courage very much; he grew thin and grey and fell into a religious mood; two or three times he sent to me, begging to let him see the laws about punishments; it was evident he was interested in the extent of the punishment