Chekhov - The Swedish Match
I
II
II
Twelve days passed.
It was morning. The examining magistrate, Nikolay Yermolaitch,
was sitting at a green table at home, looking through the
papers, relating to the "Klyauzov case"; Dyukovsky was pacing up
and down the room restlessly, like a wolf in a cage.
"You are convinced of the guilt of Nikolashka and Psyekov," he
said, nervously pulling at his youthful beard. "Why is it you
refuse to be convinced of the guilt of Marya Ivanovna? Haven't
you evidence enough?"
"I don't say that I don't believe in it. I am convinced of it,
but somehow I can't believe it. . . . There is no real evidence.
It's all theoretical, as it were. . . . Fanaticism and one thing
and another. . . ."
"And you must have an axe and bloodstained sheets! . . . You
lawyers! Well, I will prove it to you then! Do give up your
slip-shod attitude to the psychological aspect of the case. Your
Marya Ivanovna ought to be in Siberia! I'll prove it. If
theoretical proof is not enough for you, I have something
material. . . . It will show you how right my theory is! Only
let me go about a little!"
"What are you talking about?"
"The Swedish match! Have you forgotten? I haven't forgotten it!
I'll find out who struck it in the murdered man's room! It was
not struck by Nikolashka, nor by Psyekov, neither of whom turned
out to have matches when searched, but a third person, that is
Marya Ivanovna. And I will prove it! . . . Only let me drive
about the district, make some inquiries. . . ."
"Oh, very well, sit down. . . . Let us proceed to the
examination."
Dyukovsky sat down to the table, and thrust his long nose into
the papers.
"Bring in Nikolay Tetchov!" cried the examining magistrate.
Nikolashka was brought in. He was pale and thin as a chip. He
was trembling.
"Tetchov!" began Tchubikov. "In 1879 you were convicted of theft
and condemned to a term of imprisonment. In 1882 you were
condemned for theft a second time, and a second time sent to
prison . . . We know all about it. . . ."
A look of surprise came up into Nikolashka's face. The examining
magistrate's omniscience amazed him, but soon wonder was
replaced by an expression of extreme distress. He broke into
sobs, and asked leave to go to wash, and calm himself. He was
led out.
"Bring in Psyekov!" said the examining magistrate.
Psyekov was led in. The young man's face had greatly changed
during those twelve days. He was thin, pale, and wasted. There
was a look of apathy in his eyes.
"Sit down, Psyekov," said Tchubikov. "I hope that to-day you
will be sensible and not persist in lying as on other occasions.
All this time you have denied your participation in the murder
of Klyauzov, in spite of the mass of evidence against you. It is
senseless. Confession is some mitigation of guilt. To-day I am
talking to you for the last time. If you don't confess to-day,
to-morrow it will be too late. Come, tell us. . . ."
"I know nothing, and I don't know your evidence," whispered
Psyekov.
"That's useless! Well then, allow me to tell you how it
happened. On Saturday evening, you were sitting in Klyauzov's
bedroom drinking vodka and beer with him." (Dyukovsky riveted
his eyes on Psyekov's face, and did not remove them during the
whole monologue.) "Nikolay was waiting upon you. Between twelve
and one Mark Ivanitch told you he wanted to go to bed. He always
did go to bed at that time. While he was taking off his boots
and giving you some instructions regarding the estate, Nikolay
and you at a given signal seized your intoxicated master and
flung him back upon the bed. One of you sat on his feet, the
other on his head. At that moment the lady, you know who, in a
black dress, who had arranged with you beforehand the part she
would take in the crime, came in from the passage. She picked up
the pillow, and proceeded to smother him with it. During the
struggle, the light went out. The woman took a box of Swedish
matches out of her pocket and lighted the candle. Isn't that
right? I see from your face that what I say is true. Well, to
proceed. . . . Having smothered him, and being convinced that he
had ceased to breathe, Nikolay and you dragged him out of window
and put him down near the burdocks. Afraid that he might regain
consciousness, you struck him with something sharp. Then you
carried him, and laid him for some time under a lilac bush.
After resting and considering a little, you carried him . . .
lifted him over the hurdle. . . . Then went along the road. . .
Then comes the dam; near the dam you were frightened by a
peasant. But what is the matter with you?"
Psyekov, white as a sheet, got up, staggering.
"I am suffocating!" he said. "Very well. . . . So be it. . . .
Only I must go. . . . Please."
Psyekov was led out.
"At last he has admitted it!" said Tchubikov, stretching at his
ease. "He has given himself away! How neatly I caught him
there."
"And he didn't deny the woman in black!" said Dyukovsky,
laughing. "I am awfully worried over that Swedish match, though!
I can't endure it any longer. Good-bye! I am going!"
Dyukovsky put on his cap and went off. Tchubikov began
interrogating Akulka.
Akulka declared that she knew nothing about it. . . .
"I have lived with you and with nobody else!" she said.
At six o'clock in the evening Dyukovsky returned. He was more
excited than ever. His hands trembled so much that he could not
unbutton his overcoat. His cheeks were burning. It was evident
that he had not come back without news.
"Veni, vidi, vici!" he cried, dashing into Tchubikov's room and
sinking into an arm-chair. "I vow on my honour, I begin to
believe in my own genius. Listen, damnation take us! Listen and
wonder, old friend! It's comic and it's sad. You have three in
your grasp already . . . haven't you? I have found a fourth
murderer, or rather murderess, for it is a woman! And what a
woman! I would have given ten years of my life merely to touch
her shoulders. But . . . listen. I drove to Klyauzovka and
proceeded to describe a spiral round it. On the way I visited
all the shopkeepers and innkeepers, asking for Swedish matches.
Everywhere I was told 'No.' I have been on my round up to now.
Twenty times I lost hope, and as many times regained it. I have
been on the go all day long, and only an hour ago came upon what
I was looking for. A couple of miles from here they gave me a
packet of a dozen boxes of matches. One box was missing . . . I
asked at once: 'Who bought that box?' 'So-and-so. She took a
fancy to them. . . They crackle.' My dear fellow! Nikolay
Yermolaitch! What can sometimes be done by a man who has been
expelled from a seminary and studied Gaboriau is beyond all
conception! From to-day I shall began to respect myself! . . .
Ough. . . . Well, let us go!"
"Go where?"
"To her, to the fourth. . . . We must make haste, or . . . I
shall explode with impatience! Do you know who she is? You will
never guess. The young wife of our old police superintendent,
Yevgraf Kuzmitch, Olga Petrovna; that's who it is! She bought
that box of matches!"
"You . . . you. . . . Are you out of your mind?"
"It's very natural! In the first place she smokes, and in the
second she was head over ears in love with Klyauzov. He rejected
her love for the sake of an Akulka. Revenge. I remember now, I
once came upon them behind the screen in the kitchen. She was
cursing him, while he was smoking her cigarette and puffing the
smoke into her face. But do come along; make haste, for it is
getting dark already. . . . Let us go!"
"I have not gone so completely crazy yet as to disturb a
respectable, honourable woman at night for the sake of a
wretched boy!"
"Honourable, respectable. . . . You are a rag then, not an
examining magistrate! I have never ventured to abuse you, but
now you force me to it! You rag! you old fogey! Come, dear
Nikolay Yermolaitch, I entreat you!"
The examining magistrate waved his hand in refusal and spat in
disgust.
"I beg you! I beg you, not for my own sake, but in the interests
of justice! I beseech you, indeed! Do me a favour, if only for
once in your life!"
Dyukovsky fell on his knees.
"Nikolay Yermolaitch, do be so good! Call me a scoundrel, a
worthless wretch if I am in error about that woman! It is such a
case, you know! It is a case! More like a novel than a case. The
fame of it will be all over Russia. They will make you examining
magistrate for particularly important cases! Do understand, you
unreasonable old man!"
The examining magistrate frowned and irresolutely put out his
hand towards his hat.
"Well, the devil take you!" he said, "let us go."
It was already dark when the examining magistrate's waggonette
rolled up to the police superintendent's door.
"What brutes we are!" said Tchubikov, as he reached for the
bell. "We are disturbing people."
"Never mind, never mind, don't be frightened. We will say that
one of the springs has broken."
Tchubikov and Dyukovsky were met in the doorway by a tall, plump
woman of three and twenty, with eyebrows as black as pitch and
full red lips. It was Olga Petrovna herself.
"Ah, how very nice," she said, smiling all over her face. "You
are just in time for supper. My Yevgraf Kuzmitch is not at home.
. . . He is staying at the priest's. But we can get on without
him. Sit down. Have you come from an inquiry?"
"Yes. . . . We have broken one of our springs, you know," began
Tchubikov, going into the drawing-room and sitting down in an
easy-chair.
"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 bath-house. 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 bath-house," said the superintendent's wife, "but,
I implore you, do not tell anyone."
Going up to the bath-house, 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 bath-house. 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 bath-room. 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 bath-house, 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
bath-house. 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 bath-house 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!"
NOTES
police superintendent: stanovoi pristav or city chief of police
witnesses: members of the public had to be present when the
police searched for evidence
police captain's: ispravnik or district chief of police
examining magistrate: sledovatel; based on the French model,
Russian examining magistrates were usually appointed for life
and were in charge of all criminal investigations
Nana: the prostitute heroine of the French novel Nana by Emile
Zola (1840-1902)
non dubitandum est: no doubt
Old Believer: those who adhered to the ritual of the Russian
Orthodox Church as practiced before the 17th century reforms
read Dostoevsky: Ivan Shatov, in The Possessed, for example, by
the novelist Fyodor M. Dostoyevsky (1821-1881)
Lyeskov . . . and Petchersky: Nikolay Semenovich Leskov
(1831-1895) wrote stories of the Russian church and its clergy;
Andrey Petchersky (real name, Pavel Ivanovich Melnikov,
1819-1883) wrote fiction concerned with the lives of Old
Believers
Veni, vidi, vici!: I came, I saw, I conquered, saying of Julius
Caesar
Gaboriau: Emile Gaboriau (1832-1873), Frenchman who wrote many
early crime novels
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