Short Fiction, Anton Chekhov [websites to read books for free .TXT] 📗

“Take her by surprise at once and overwhelm her,” Dyukovsky whispered to him.

“A spring⁠ ⁠… er⁠ ⁠… yes.⁠ ⁠… We just drove up.⁠ ⁠…”

“Overwhelm her, I tell you! She will guess if you go drawing it out.”

“Oh, do as you like, but spare me,” muttered Tchubikov, getting up and walking to the window. “I can’t! You cooked the mess, you eat it!”

“Yes, the spring,” Dyukovsky began, going up to the superintendent’s wife and wrinkling his long nose. “We have not come in to⁠ ⁠… er-er-er⁠ ⁠… supper, nor to see Yevgraf Kuzmitch. We have come to ask you, madam, where is Mark Ivanovitch whom you have murdered?”

“What? What Mark Ivanovitch?” faltered the superintendent’s wife, and her full face was suddenly in one instant suffused with crimson. “I⁠ ⁠… don’t understand.”

“I ask you in the name of the law! Where is Klyauzov? We know all about it!”

“Through whom?” the superintendent’s wife asked slowly, unable to face Dyukovsky’s eyes.

“Kindly inform us where he is!”

“But how did you find out? Who told you?”

“We know all about it. I insist in the name of the law.”

The examining magistrate, encouraged by the lady’s confusion, went up to her.

“Tell us and we will go away. Otherwise we⁠ ⁠…”

“What do you want with him?”

“What is the object of such questions, madam? We ask you for information. You are trembling, confused.⁠ ⁠… Yes, he has been murdered, and if you will have it, murdered by you! Your accomplices have betrayed you!”

The police superintendent’s wife turned pale.

“Come along,” she said quietly, wringing her hands. “He is hidden in the bathhouse. Only for God’s sake, don’t 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