LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER XXVIII

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      I made the preliminary examinations in the mosaic room in which I had loved at one time to loll on the soft divan and pay court to gipsies.

      The first person I examined was Urbenin. He was brought to me from Olga’s room, where he continued to sit on a stool in a corner and never removed his eyes from the empty bed… For a moment he stood before me in silence, looking at me with indifference, then probably thinking that I wanted to speak to him in my character of examining magistrate, he said in the tired voice of a man who was broken by grief and anguish:

      ‘Sergey Petrovich, examine the other witnesses first, please, and me afterwards… I can’t…’

      Urbenin considered himself a witness, or thought that he would be considered one.

      ‘No, I must examine you at once,’ I said. ‘Be seated, please…’

      Urbenin sat down opposite me and bent his head. He was weary and ill, he answered reluctantly, and it was only with difficulty I was able to squeeze his deposition out of him.

      He deposed that he was Pëtr Egorych Urbenin, nobleman, fifty years of age, belonging to the Orthodox Faith. That he owned an estate in the neighbouring K — district where he was on the electoral roll, and had served for the last three terms as honorary magistrate. Being ruined, he had mortgaged his estate and had considered it necessary to go into service. He had entered the Count’s service as bailiff six years ago. Liking agriculture, he was not ashamed of being in the service of a private individual, and considered that it was only the foolish who were ashamed of work. He received his salary from the Count regularly, and he had nothing to complain of. He had a son and a daughter from his first marriage, etc., etc., etc.

      He had married Olga because he was passionately in love with her. He had struggled long and painfully with his feelings, but neither common sense nor the logic of a practical elderly mind - in fact, nothing had effect: he was obliged to succumb to his feelings and he got married. He knew that Olga did not marry him for love, but considering her to be moral in the highest degree, he decided to content himself with her faithfulness and friendship, which he had hoped to merit.

      When he came to describe his disenchantment and the wrongs done to his grey hairs, Urbenin asked permission not to speak of ‘the past which God will forgive her’ or at least to defer the conversation about that to a future time.

      I can’t… It’s hard… Besides, you yourself saw it.’

      ‘Very well, let us leave it for another time… Only tell me now, did you beat your wife? It is reported that one day, finding a note from the Count in her possession, you struck her…’

      ‘That is not true… I only seized her by the arm, she began to cry, and that same evening she went to complain…’

      ‘Did you know of her connection with the Count?’

      ‘I have begged that this subject should be deferred… And what is the use of it?’

      ‘Answer me only this one question, which is of great importance… Was your wife’s connection with the Count known to you?’

      ‘Certainly…’

      ‘I shall write that down, and all the rest concerning your wife’s unfaithfulness can be left for the next time… Now we will revert to another question. Will you explain to me how it came that you were in the forest where Olga Nikolaevna was murdered?… You were, you say, in town… How did you come to be in the forest?’

      ‘Yes, sir, I had been living in town with a cousin ever since I lost my place… I passed my time in looking for a place and in drinking to forget my sorrows… I had been drinking specially hard this last month. For example, I can’t remember what happened last week as I was always drunk… The day before yesterday I got drunk too… In a word I am lost… Irremediably lost!”

      ‘You were going to tell me how it was that you came to be in the forest yesterday.’

      ‘Yes, sir… I awoke yesterday morning early, about four o’clock… My head was aching from the previous day’s drink, I had pains in all my limbs as if I had a fever… I lay on my bed and saw through the window the sun rise, and I remembered… many things… A weight was on my heart… Suddenly I wanted to see her… to see her once more, perhaps for the last time. I was seized by wrath and melancholy… I drew from my pocket the hundred-rouble note the Count had sent me. I looked at it, and then trampled it underfoot… I trampled on it till I decided to go and fling this charity into his face. However hungry and ragged I may be, I cannot sell my honour, and every attempt to buy it I consider a personal insult. So you see, sir, I wanted to have a look at Olga and fling the money into the ugly mug of that seducer. And this longing overpowered me to such an extent that I almost went out of my mind. I had no money to drive here; I could not spend his hundred roubles on myself. I started on foot. By good luck a muzhik I know overtook me, and drove me eighteen versts for ten kopecks, otherwise I might still have been trudging along. The muzhik set me down in Tenevo. From there I came here on foot and arrived about four o’clock.’

      ‘Did anybody see you here at that time?’

      ‘Yes, sir. The watchman, Nikolai, was sitting at the gate and told me the masters were not at home, they had all gone out shooting. I was almost worn out with fatigue, but the desire to see my wife was stronger than my weariness. I set off on foot without a moment’s rest to the place where they were shooting. I did not go by the road, but started through the forest. I know every tree, and it would be as difficult for me to lose myself in the Count’s forests as it would be in my own house.’

      ‘But going through the forest and not by the road you might have missed the shooting party.’

      ‘No, sir, I kept so close to the road all the time that I could not only hear the shots but the conversations too.’

      ‘So you did not expect to meet your wife in the forest?’

      Urbenin looked at me with astonishment, and, after thinking for a short time, he replied:

      ‘Pardon me, but that is a strange question.

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