LITMIR.BIZ

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tell my husband! I implore you! It would be too much for him.”

      The superintendent’s wife took a big key from the wall, and led her visitors through the kitchen and the passage into the yard. It was dark in the yard. There was a drizzle of fine rain. The superintendent’s wife went on ahead. Tchubikov and Dyukovsky strode after her through the long grass, breathing in the smell of wild hemp and slops, which made a squelching sound under their feet. It was a big yard. Soon there were no more pools of slops, and their feet felt ploughed land. In the darkness they saw the silhouette of trees, and among the trees a little house with a crooked chimney.

      “This is the bathhouse,” said the superintendent’s wife, “but, I implore you, do not tell anyone.”

      Going up to the bathhouse, Tchubikov and Dyukovsky saw a large padlock on the door.

      “Get ready your candle-end and matches,” Tchubikov whispered to his assistant.

      The superintendent’s wife unlocked the padlock and let the visitors into the bathhouse. Dyukovsky struck a match and lighted up the entry. In the middle of it stood a table. On the table, beside a podgy little samovar, was a soup tureen with some cold cabbage-soup in it, and a dish with traces of some sauce on it.

      “Go on!”

      They went into the next room, the bathroom. There, too, was a table. On the table there stood a big dish of ham, a bottle of vodka, plates, knives and forks.

      “But where is he… where’s the murdered man?”

      He is on the top shelf,” whispered the superintendent’s wife, turning paler than ever and trembling.

      Dyukovsky took the candle-end in his hand and climbed up to the upper shelf. There he saw a long, human body, lying motionless on a big feather bed. The body emitted a faint snore….

      “They have made fools of us, damn it all!” Dyukovsky cried. “This is not he! It is some living blockhead lying here. Hi! who are you, damnation take you!”

      The body drew in its breath with a whistling sound and moved. Dyukovsky prodded it with his elbow. It lifted up its arms, stretched, and raised its head.

      “Who is that poking?” a hoarse, ponderous bass voice inquired. “What do you want?”

      Dyukovsky held the candle-end to the face of the unknown and uttered a shriek. In the crimson nose, in the ruffled, uncombed hair, in the pitch-black moustaches of which one was jauntily twisted and pointed insolently towards the ceiling, he recognised Cornet Klyauzov.

      “You…. Mark… Ivanitch! Impossible!”

      The examining magistrate looked up and was dumbfoundered.

      “It is I, yes…. And it’s you, Dyukovsky! What the devil do you want here? And whose ugly mug is that down there? Holy Saints, it’s the examining magistrate! How in the world did you come here?”

      Klyauzov hurriedly got down and embraced Tchubikov. Olga Petrovna whisked out of the door.

      “However did you come? Let’s have a drink! — dash it all! Tra-ta-ti-to-tom…. Let’s have a drink! Who brought you here, though? How did you get to know I was here? It doesn’t matter, though! Have a drink!”

      Klyauzov lighted the lamp and poured out three glasses of vodka.

      “The fact is, I don’t understand you,” said the examining magistrate, throwing out his hands. “Is it you, or not you?”

      “Stop that…. Do you want to give me a sermon? Don’t trouble yourself! Dyukovsky boy, drink up your vodka! Friends, let us pass the… What are you staring at… ? Drink!”

      “All the same, I can’t understand,” said the examining magistrate, mechanically drinking his vodka. “Why are you here?”

      “Why shouldn’t I be here, if I am comfortable here?”

      Klyauzov sipped his vodka and ate some ham.

      “I am staying with the superintendent’s wife, as you see. In the wilds among the ruins, like some house goblin. Drink! I felt sorry for her, you know, old man! I took pity on her, and, well, I am living here in the deserted bathhouse, like a hermit…. I am well fed. Next week I am thinking of moving on…. I’ve had enough of it… .”

      “Inconceivable!” said Dyukovsky.

      “What is there inconceivable in it?”

      “Inconceivable! For God’s sake, how did your boot get into the garden?”

      “What boot?”

      “We found one of your boots in the bedroom and the other in the garden.”

      “And what do you want to know that for? It is not your business. But do drink, dash it all. Since you have waked me up, you may as well drink! There’s an interesting tale about that boot, my boy. I didn’t want to come to Olga’s. I didn’t feel inclined, you know, I’d had a drop too much…. She came under the window and began scolding me…. You know how women… as a rule. Being drunk, I up and flung my boot at her. Ha-ha!… ‘Don’t scold,’ I said. She clambered in at the window, lighted the lamp, and gave me a good drubbing, as I was drunk. I have plenty to eat here…. Love, vodka, and good things! But where are you off to? Tchubikov, where are you off to?”

      The examining magistrate spat on the floor and walked out of the bathhouse. Dyukovsky followed him with his head hanging. Both got into the waggonette in silence and drove off. Never had the road seemed so long and dreary. Both were silent. Tchubikov was shaking with anger all the way. Dyukovsky hid his face in his collar as though he were afraid the darkness and the drizzling rain might read his shame on his face.

      On getting home the examining magistrate found the doctor, Tyutyuev, there. The doctor was sitting at the table and heaving deep sighs as he turned over the pages of the Neva.

      “The things that are going on in the world,” he said, greeting the examining magistrate with a melancholy smile. “Austria is at it again… and Gladstone, too, in a way… .”

      Tchubikov flung his hat under the table and began to tremble.

      “You devil of a skeleton! Don’t bother me! I’ve told you a thousand times over, don’t bother me with your politics! It’s not the time for politics! And as for you,” he turned upon Dyukovsky and shook his fist at him, “as for you…. I’ll never forget it, as long as I live!”

      “But the Swedish match, you know! How could I tell… .”

      “Choke yourself with your match! Go away and don’t irritate me, or goodness knows what I shall do to you. Don’t let me set eyes on you.”

      Dyukovsky heaved a sigh, took his hat, and went out.

      “I’ll go and get drunk!” he decided, as he went out of the gate, and he sauntered dejectedly towards the tavern.

      When the superintendent’s wife got home from the bathhouse she found her husband in the drawing-room.

      “What did the examining magistrate come about?” asked her husband.

      “He came to say that they had found Klyauzov. Only fancy, they found him staying with another man’s wife.”

      “Ah, Mark Ivanitch, Mark Ivanitch!” sighed the police superintendent, turning up his eyes. “I told you that dissipation would lead to no good! I told you so — you wouldn’t heed me!”

       THE SAFETY MATCH [trans by Julian Hawthorne]

       Table of Contents

      On the morning of October 6, 1885, in the office of the Inspector of Police of the second division of S——

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