was, yethe managed it and getting into the boat, floated on the big river,which, as the River of Time, flows to Constantinople in the map on thewalls of the Nikolaevsky High School. With great satisfaction hefloated down the river and watched a number of red ducks whichcontinually met him; they would not let him come near them, however,and, diving, changed into round, pink spots. And Colibri was goingwith him, too, but to escape the sultry heat she hid, under the boatand from time to time knocked on the bottom of it.... And here at lastwas Constantinople. The houses, as houses should, looked like Tyrolesehats; and the Turks had all big, sedate faces; only it did not do tolook at them too long: they began wriggling, making faces and at lastmelted away altogether like thawing snow. And here was the palace inwhich he would live with Colibri.... And how well everything wasarranged in it! Walls with generals' gold lace on it, everywhereepaulettes, people blowing trumpets in the corners and one could floatinto the drawing-room in the boat. Of course, there was a portrait ofMahomet.... Only Colibri kept running ahead through the rooms and herplaits trailed after her on the floor and she would not turn round,and she kept growing smaller and smaller.... And now it was notColibri but a boy in a jacket and he was the boy's tutor and he had toclimb after the boy into a telescope, and the telescope got narrowerand narrower, till at last he could not move ... neither backwards norforwards, and something fell on his back ... there was earth in hismouth.
XXIII
Kuzma Vassilyevitch opened his eyes. It was daylight and everythingwas still ... there was a smell of vinegar and mint. Above him and athis sides there was something white; he looked more intently: it wasthe canopy of a bed. He wanted to raise his head ... he could not; hishand ... he could not do that, either. What was the meaning of it? Hedropped his eyes.... A long body lay stretched before him and over ita yellow blanket with a brown edge. The body proved to be his, KuzmaVassilyevitch's. He tried to cry out ... no sound came. He triedagain, did his very utmost ... there was the sound of a feeble moanquavering under his nose. He heard heavy footsteps and a sinewy handparted the bed curtains. A grey-headed pensioner in a patched militaryovercoat stood gazing at him.... And he gazed at the pensioner. A bigtin mug was put to Kuzma Vassilyevitch's lips. He greedily drank somecold water. His tongue was loosened. "Where am I?" The pensionerglanced at him once more, went away and came back with another man ina dark uniform. "Where am I?" repeated Kuzma Vassilyevitch. "Well, hewill live now," said the man in the dark uniform. "You are in thehospital," he added aloud, "but you must go to sleep. It is bad foryou to talk." Kuzma Vassilyevitch began to feel surprised, but sankinto forgetfulness again....
Next morning the doctor appeared. Kuzma Vassilyevitch came to himself.The doctor congratulated him on his recovery and ordered the bandagesround his head to be changed.
"What? My head? Why, am I ..."
"You mustn't talk, you mustn't excite yourself," the doctorinterrupted. "Lie still and thank the Almighty. Where are thecompresses, 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 thedoctors found it possible to tell him what had happened to him. Thisis what he learned.
At seven o'clock in the evening on the 16th of June he had visited thehouse of Madame Fritsche for the last time and on the 17th of June atdinner time, that is, nearly twenty-four hours later, a shepherd hadfound him in a ravine near the Herson high road, a mile and a halffrom Nikolaev, with a broken head and crimson bruises on his neck. Hisuniform and waistcoat had been unbuttoned, all his pockets turnedinside out, his cap and cutlass were not to be found, nor his leathermoney belt. From the trampled grass, from the broad track upon thegrass and the clay, it could be inferred that the luckless lieutenanthad been dragged to the bottom of the ravine and only there had beengashed on his head, not with an axe but with a sabre--probably his owncutlass: there were no traces of blood on his track from the high roadwhile there was a perfect pool of blood round his head. There could beno doubt that his assailants had first drugged him, then tried tostrangle him and, taking him out of the town by night, had dragged himto the ravine and there given him the final blow. It was only thanksto his truly iron constitution that Kuzma Vassilyevitch had not died.He had returned to consciousness on July 22nd, that is, five weekslater.
XXV
Kuzma Vassilyevitch immediately informed the authorities of themisfortune that had happened to him; he stated all the circumstancesof the case verbally and in writing and gave the address of MadameFritsche. The police raided the house but they found no one there; thebirds had flown. They got hold of the owner of the house. But theycould not get much sense out of the latter, a very old and deafworkman. He lived in a different part of the town and all he knew wasthat four months before he had let his house to a Jewess with apassport, whose name was Schmul or Schmulke, which he had immediatelyregistered at the police station. She had been joined by another woman,so he stated, who also had a passport, but what was their calling didnot know; and whether they had other people living with them had notheard and did not know; the lad whom he used to keep as porter orwatchman in the house had gone away to Odessa or Petersburg, and thenew porter had only lately come, on the 1st of July.
Inquiries were made at the police station and in the neighbourhood; itappeared that Madame Schmulke, together with her companion, whose realname was Frederika Bengel, had left Nikolaev about the 20th of June,but where they had gone was unknown. The mysterious man with a gipsyface and three buttons on his cuff and the dark-skinned foreign girlwith an immense mass of hair, no one had seen. As soon as KuzmaVassilyevitch was discharged from the hospital, he visited the housethat had been so fateful for him. In the little room where he hadtalked to Colibri and where there was still a smell of musk, there wasa second secret door; the sofa had been moved in front of it on hissecond visit and through it no doubt the murderer had come and seizedhim from behind. Kuzma Vassilyevitch lodged a formal complaint;proceedings were taken. Several numbered reports and instructions weredispatched in various directions; the appropriate acknowledgments andreplies followed in due course.... There the incident closed. Thesuspicious characters had disappeared completely and with them thestolen government money had vanished, too, one thousand, nine hundredand seventeen roubles and some kopecks, in paper and gold. Not aninconsiderable sum in those days! Kuzma Vassilyevitch was paying backinstalments for ten years, when, fortunately for him, an act ofclemency from the Throne cancelled the debt.
XXVI
He was himself at first firmly convinced that Emilie, his treacherousZuckerpueppchen, was to blame for all his trouble and had originatedthe plot. He remembered how on the last day he had seen her he hadincautiously dropped asleep on the sofa and how when he woke he hadfound her on her knees beside him and how confused she had been, andhow he had found a hole in his belt that evening--a hole evidentlymade by her scissors. "She saw the money," thought KuzmaVassilyevitch, "she told the old hag and those other two devils, sheentrapped 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!" herepeated, gnashing his teeth, "brood of crocodiles!" But when he hadfinally left the hospital and gone home, he learned one circumstancewhich perplexed and nonplussed him. On the very day when he wasbrought half dead to the town, a girl whose description correspondedexactly to that of Emilie had rushed to his lodging with tear-stainedface and dishevelled hair and inquiring about him from his orderly,had dashed off like mad to the hospital. At the hospital she had beentold that Kuzma Vassilyevitch would certainly die and she had at oncedisappeared, wringing her hands with a look of despair on her face. Itwas evident that she had not foreseen, had not expected the murder. Orperhaps she had herself been deceived and had not received herpromised share? Had she been overwhelmed by sudden remorse? And yetshe had left Nikolaev afterwards with that l
oathsome old woman who hadcertainly known all about it. Kuzma Vassilyevitch was lost inconjecture and bored his orderly a good deal by making him continuallydescribe over and over again the appearance of the girl and repeat herwords.
XXVII
A year and a half later Kuzma Vassilyevitch received a letter inGerman from Emilie, _alias_ Frederika Bengel, which he promptlyhad translated for him and showed us more than once in later days. Itwas full of mistakes in spelling and exclamation marks; the postmarkon the envelope was Breslau. Here is the translation, as correct asmay be, of the letter:
"My precious, unforgettable and incomparable Florestan! Mr. LieutenantYergenhof!
"How often I felt impelled to write to you! And I have alwaysunfortunately put it off, though the thought that you may regard me ashaving had a hand in that awful crime has
Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories Page 21
