was a smell of vinegar and mint. Above him and at

his sides there was something white; he looked more intently: it was

the canopy of a bed. He wanted to raise his head … he could not; his

hand … he could not do that, either. What was the meaning of it? He

dropped his eyes…. A long body lay stretched before him and over it

a yellow blanket with a brown edge. The body proved to be his, Kuzma

Vassilyevitch’s. He tried to cry out … no sound came. He tried

again, did his very utmost … there was the sound of a feeble moan

quavering under his nose. He heard heavy footsteps and a sinewy hand

parted the bed curtains. A grey-headed pensioner in a patched military

overcoat stood gazing at him…. And he gazed at the pensioner. A big

tin mug was put to Kuzma Vassilyevitch’s lips. He greedily drank some

cold water. His tongue was loosened. «Where am I?» The pensioner

glanced at him once more, went away and came back with another man in

a dark uniform. «Where am I?» repeated Kuzma Vassilyevitch. «Well, he

will live now,» said the man in the dark uniform. «You are in the

hospital,» he added aloud, «but you must go to sleep. It is bad for

you to talk.» Kuzma Vassilyevitch began to feel surprised, but sank

into forgetfulness again….

Next morning the doctor appeared. Kuzma Vassilyevitch came to himself.

The doctor congratulated him on his recovery and ordered the bandages

round his head to be changed.

«What? My head? Why, am I …»

«You mustn’t talk, you mustn’t excite yourself,» the doctor

interrupted. «Lie still and thank the Almighty. Where are the

compresses, Poplyovkin?»

«But where is the money … the government money …»

«There! He is lightheaded again. Some more ice, Poplyovkin.»

XXIV

Another week passed. Kuzma Vassilyevitch was so much better that the

doctors found it possible to tell him what had happened to him. This

is what he learned.

At seven o’clock in the evening on the 16th of June he had visited the

house of Madame Fritsche for the last time and on the 17th of June at

dinner time, that is, nearly twenty-four hours later, a shepherd had

found him in a ravine near the Herson high road, a mile and a half

from Nikolaev, with a broken head and crimson bruises on his neck. His

uniform and waistcoat had been unbuttoned, all his pockets turned

inside out, his cap and cutlass were not to be found, nor his leather

money belt. From the trampled grass, from the broad track upon the

grass and the clay, it could be inferred that the luckless lieutenant

had been dragged to the bottom of the ravine and only there had been

gashed on his head, not with an axe but with a sabre—probably his own

cutlass: there were no traces of blood on his track from the high road

while there was a perfect pool of blood round his head. There could be

no doubt that his assailants had first drugged him, then tried to

strangle him and, taking him out of the town by night, had dragged him

to the ravine and there given him the final blow. It was only thanks

to his truly iron constitution that Kuzma Vassilyevitch had not died.

He had returned to consciousness on July 22nd, that is, five weeks

later.

XXV

Kuzma Vassilyevitch immediately informed the authorities of the

misfortune that had happened to him; he stated all the circumstances of

the case verbally and in writing and gave the address of Madame

Fritsche. The police raided the house but they found no one there; the

birds had flown. They got hold of the owner of the house. But they

could not get much sense out of the latter, a very old and deaf

workman. He lived in a different part of the town and all he knew was

that four months before he had let his house to a Jewess with a

passport, whose name was Schmul or Schmulke, which he had immediately

registered at the police station. She had been joined by another woman,

so he stated, who also had a passport, but what was their calling did

not know; and whether they had other people living with them had not

heard and did not know; the lad whom he used to keep as porter or

watchman in the house had gone away to Odessa or Petersburg, and the

new porter had only lately come, on the 1st of July.

Inquiries were made at the police station and in the neighbourhood; it

appeared that Madame Schmulke, together with her companion, whose real

name was Frederika Bengel, had left Nikolaev about the 20th of June,

but where they had gone was unknown. The mysterious man with a gipsy

face and three buttons on his cuff and the dark-skinned foreign girl

with an immense mass of hair, no one had seen. As soon as Kuzma

Vassilyevitch was discharged from the hospital, he visited the house

that had been so fateful for him. In the little room where he had

talked to Colibri and where there was still a smell of musk, there was

a second secret door; the sofa had been moved in front of it on his

second visit and through it no doubt the murderer had come and seized

him from behind. Kuzma Vassilyevitch lodged a formal complaint;

proceedings were taken. Several numbered reports and instructions were

dispatched in various directions; the appropriate acknowledgments and

replies followed in due course…. There the incident closed. The

suspicious characters had disappeared completely and with them the

stolen government money had vanished, too, one thousand, nine hundred

and seventeen roubles and some kopecks, in paper and gold. Not an

inconsiderable sum in those days! Kuzma Vassilyevitch was paying back

instalments for ten years, when, fortunately for him, an act of

clemency from the Throne cancelled the debt.

XXVI

He was himself at first firmly convinced that Emilie, his treacherous

Zuckerpüppchen, was to blame for all his trouble and had originated

the plot. He remembered how on the last day he had seen her he had

incautiously dropped asleep on the sofa and how when he woke he had

found her on her knees beside him and how confused she had been, and

how he had found a hole in his belt that evening—a hole evidently

made by her scissors. «She saw the money,» thought Kuzma

Vassilyevitch, «she told the old hag and those other two devils, she

entrapped me by writing me that letter … and so they cleaned me out.

But who could have expected it of her!» He pictured the pretty,

good-natured face of Emilie, her clear eyes…. «Women! women!» he

repeated, gnashing his teeth, «brood of crocodiles!» But when he had

finally left the hospital and gone home, he learned one circumstance

which perplexed and nonplussed him. On the very day when he was

brought half dead to the town, a girl whose description corresponded

exactly to that of Emilie had rushed to his lodging with tear-stained

face and dishevelled hair and inquiring about him from his orderly,

had dashed off like mad to the hospital. At the hospital she had been

told that Kuzma Vassilyevitch would certainly die and she had at once

disappeared, wringing her hands with a look of despair on her face. It

was evident that she had not foreseen, had not expected the murder. Or

perhaps she had herself been deceived and had not received her

promised share? Had she been overwhelmed by sudden remorse? And yet

she had left Nikolaev afterwards with that loathsome old woman who had

certainly known all about it. Kuzma Vassilyevitch was lost in

conjecture and bored his orderly a good deal by making him continually

describe over and over again the appearance of the girl and repeat her

words.

XXVII

A year and a half later Kuzma Vassilyevitch received a letter in

German from Emilie, alias Frederika Bengel, which he promptly

had translated for him and showed us more than once in later days. It

was full of mistakes in spelling and exclamation marks; the postmark

on the envelope was Breslau. Here is the translation, as correct as

may be, of the letter:

«My precious, unforgettable and incomparable Florestan! Mr. Lieutenant

Yergenhof!

«How often I felt impelled to write to you! And I have always

unfortunately put it off, though the thought that you may regard me as

having had a hand in that awful crime has always been the most

appalling thought to me! Oh, dear Mr. Lieutenant! Believe me, the day

when I learnt that you were alive and well, was the happiest day of my

life! But I do not mean to justify myself altogether! I will not tell

a lie! I was the first to discover your habit of carrying your money

round your waist! (Though indeed in our part of the world all the

butchers and meat salesmen do the same!) And I was so incautious as to

let drop a word about it! I even said in joke that it wouldn’t be bad

to take a little of your money! But the old wretch (Mr. Florestan! she

was not my aunt) plotted with that godless monster Luigi and

his accomplice! I swear by my mother’s tomb, I don’t know to this day

who those people were! I only know that his name was Luigi and that

they both came from Bucharest and were certainly great criminals and

were hiding from the police and had money and precious things! Luigi

was a dreadful individual (ein schröckliches Subject), to kill

a fellow-man (einen Mitmenschen) meant nothing at all to him!

He spoke every language—and it was he who that time got our

things back from the cook! Don’t ask how! He was capable of anything,

he was an awful man! He assured the old woman that he would only drug

you a little and then take you out of town and put you down somewhere

and would say that he knew nothing about it but that it was your

fault—that you had taken too much wine somewhere! But even then the

wretch had it in his mind that it would be better to kill you so that

there would be no one to tell the tale! He wrote you that letter,

signed with my name and the old woman got me away