Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories Page 16

  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 by craft! I

  suspected nothing and I was awfully afraid of Luigi! He used to say to

  me, 'I'll cut your throat, I'll cut your throat like a chicken's!' And

  he used to twitch his moustache so horribly as he said it! And they

  dragged me into a bad company, too.... I am very much ashamed, Mr.

  Lieutenant! And even now I shed bitter tears at these memories! ... It

  seems to me ... ah! I was not born for such doings.... But there is no

  help for it; and this is how it all happened! Afterwards I was

  horribly frightened and could not help going away, for if the police

  had found us, what would have happened to us then? That accursed Luigi

  fled at once as soon as he heard that you were alive. But I soon

  parted from them all and though now I am often without a crust of

  bread, my heart is at peace! You will ask me perhaps why I came to

  Nikolaev? But I can give you no answer! I have sworn! I will finish by

  asking of you a favour, a very, very important one: whenever you

  remember your little friend Emilie, do not think of her as a

  black-hearted criminal! The eternal God sees my heart. I have a bad

  morality (Ich habe eine schlechte moralität) and I am

  feather-headed, but I am not a criminal. And I shall always love and

  remember you, my incomparable Florestan, and shall always wish you

  everything good on this earthly globe (auf diesem Erdenrund!).

  I don't know whether my letter will reach you, but if it does, write me

  a few lines that I may see you have received it. Thereby you will make

  very happy your ever-devoted Emilie.

  "P. S. Write to F. E. poste restante, Breslau, Silesia.

  "P. S. S. I have written to you in German; I could not express my

  feelings otherwise; but you write to me in Russian."

  XXVIII

  "Well, did you answer her?" we asked Kuzma Vassilyevitch.

  "I meant to, I meant to many times. But how was I to write? I don't

  know German ... and in Russian, who would have translated it? And so I

  did not write."

  And always as he finished his story, Kuzma Vassilyevitch sighed, shook

  his head and said, "that's what it is to be young!" And if among his

  audience was some new person who was hearing the famous story for the

  first time, he would take his hand, lay it on his skull and make him

  feel the scar of the wound.... It really was a fearful wound and the

  scar reached from one ear to the other.

  1867.

  THE DOG

  "But if one admits the possibility of the supernatural, the

  possibility of its participation in real life, then allow me to ask

  what becomes of common sense?" Anton Stepanitch pronounced and he

  folded his arms over his stomach.

  Anton Stepanitch had the grade of a civil councillor, served in some

  incomprehensible department and, speaking emphatically and stiffly in

  a bass voice, enjoyed universal respect. He had not long before, in

  the words of those who envied him, "had the Stanislav stuck on to

  him."

  "That's perfectly true," observed Skvorevitch.

  "No one will dispute that," added Kinarevitch.

  "I am of the same opinion," the master of the house, Finoplentov,

  chimed in from the corner in falsetto.

  "Well, I must confess, I cannot agree, for something supernatural has

  happened to me myself," said a bald, corpulent middle-aged gentleman

  of medium height, who had till then sat silent behind the stove. The

  eyes of all in the room turned to him with curiosity and surprise, and

  there was a silence.

  The man was a Kaluga landowner of small means who had lately come to

  Petersburg. He had once served in the Hussars, had lost money at

  cards, had resigned his commission and had settled in the country. The

  recent economic reforms had reduced his income and he had come to the

  capital to look out for a suitable berth. He had no qualifications and

  no connections, but he confidently relied on the friendship of an old

  comrade who had suddenly, for no visible reason, become a person of

  importance, and whom he had once helped in thrashing a card sharper.

  Moreover, he reckoned on his luck--and it did not fail him: a few days

  after his arrival in town he received the post of superintendent of

  government warehouses, a profitable and even honourable position,

  which did not call for conspicuous abilities: the warehouses

  themselves had only a hypothetical existence and indeed it was not

  very precisely known with what they were to be filled--but they had

  been invented with a view to government economy.

  Anton Stepanitch was the first to break the silence.

  "What, my dear sir," he began, "do you seriously maintain that