A grey-headed pensioner in a patched military
overcoat stood gazing at him.... And he gazed at the pensioner. A big
tin mug was put to Kuzma Vassilyevitch's lips. He greedily drank some
cold water. His tongue was loosened. "Where am I?" The pensioner
glanced at him once more, went away and came back with another man in
a dark uniform. "Where am I?" repeated Kuzma Vassilyevitch. "Well, he
will live now," said the man in the dark uniform. "You are in the
hospital," he added aloud, "but you must go to sleep. It is bad for
you to talk." Kuzma Vassilyevitch began to feel surprised, but sank
into forgetfulness again....

Next morning the doctor appeared. Kuzma Vassilyevitch came to himself. The doctor congratulated him on his recovery and ordered the bandages
round his head to be changed. "What? My head? Why, am I ..."

"You mustn't talk, you mustn't excite yourself," the doctor
interrupted. "Lie still and thank the Almighty. Where are the
compresses, 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 the
doctors found it possible to tell him what had happened to him. This
is what he learned. At seven o'clock in the evening on the 16th of June he had visited the
house of Madame Fritsche for the last time and on the 17th of June at
dinner time, that is, nearly twenty-four hours later, a shepherd had
found him in a ravine near the Herson high road, a mile and a half
from Nikolaev, with a broken head and crimson bruises on his neck. His
uniform and waistcoat had been unbuttoned, all his pockets turned
inside out, his cap and cutlass were not to be found, nor his leather
money belt. From the trampled grass, from the broad track upon the
grass and the clay, it could be inferred that the luckless lieutenant
had been dragged to the bottom of the ravine and only there had been
gashed on his head, not with an axe but with a sabre--probably his own
cutlass: there were no traces of blood on his track from the high road
while there was a perfect pool of blood round his head. There could be
no doubt that his assailants had first drugged him, then tried to
strangle him and, taking him out of the town by night, had dragged him
to the ravine and there given him the final blow. It was only thanks
to his truly iron constitution that Kuzma Vassilyevitch had not died. He had returned to consciousness on July 22nd, that is, five weeks
later. XXV

Kuzma Vassilyevitch immediately informed the authorities of the
misfortune that had happened to him; he stated all the circumstances
of the case verbally and in writing and gave the address of Madame
Fritsche. The police raided the house but they found no one there; the
birds had flown. They got hold of the owner of the house. But they
could not get much sense out of the latter, a very old and deaf
workman. He lived in a different part of the town and all he knew was
that four months before he had let his house to a Jewess with a
passport, whose name was Schmul or Schmulke, which he had immediately
registered at the police station. She had been joined by another woman,
so he stated, who also had a passport, but what was their calling did
not know; and whether they had other people living with them had not
heard and did not know; the lad whom he used to keep as porter or
watchman in the house had gone away to Odessa or Petersburg, and the
new porter had only lately come, on the 1st of July. Inquiries were made at the police station and in the neighbourhood; it
appeared that Madame Schmulke, together with her companion, whose real
name was Frederika Bengel, had left Nikolaev about the 20th of June,
but where they had gone was unknown. The mysterious man with a gipsy
face and three buttons on his cuff and the dark-skinned foreign girl
with an immense mass of hair, no one had seen. As soon as Kuzma
Vassilyevitch was discharged from the hospital, he visited the house
that had been so fateful for him. In the little room where he had
talked to Colibri and where there was still a smell of musk, there was
a second secret door; the sofa had been moved in front of it on his
second visit and through it no doubt the murderer had come and seized
him from behind. Kuzma Vassilyevitch lodged a formal complaint;
proceedings were taken. Several numbered reports and instructions were
dispatched in various directions; the appropriate acknowledgments and
replies followed in due course.... There the incident closed. The
suspicious characters had disappeared completely and with them the
stolen government money had vanished, too, one thousand, nine hundred
and seventeen roubles and some kopecks, in paper and gold. Not an
inconsiderable sum in those days! Kuzma Vassilyevitch was paying back
instalments for ten years, when, fortunately for him, an act of
clemency from the Throne cancelled the debt. XXVI

He was himself at first firmly convinced that Emilie, his treacherous
Zuckerpüppchen, was to blame for all his trouble and had originated
the plot. He remembered how on the last day he had seen her he had
incautiously dropped asleep on the sofa and how when he woke he had
found her on her knees beside him and how confused she had been, and
how he had found a hole in his belt that evening--a hole evidently
made by her scissors. "She saw the money," thought Kuzma
Vassilyevitch, "she told the old hag and those other two devils, she
entrapped 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!" he
repeated, gnashing his teeth, "brood of crocodiles!" But when he had
finally left the hospital and gone home, he learned one circumstance
which perplexed and nonplussed him. On the very day when he was
brought half dead to the town, a girl whose description corresponded
exactly to that of Emilie had rushed to his lodging with tear-stained
face and dishevelled hair and inquiring about him from his orderly,
had dashed off like mad to the hospital. At the hospital she had been
told that Kuzma Vassilyevitch would certainly die and she had at once
disappeared, wringing her hands with a look of despair on her face. It
was evident that she had not foreseen, had not expected the murder. Or
perhaps she had herself been deceived and had not received her
promised share? Had she been overwhelmed by sudden remorse? And yet
she had left Nikolaev afterwards with that loathsome old woman who had
certainly known all about it. Kuzma Vassilyevitch was lost in
conjecture and bored his orderly a good deal by making him continually
describe over and over again the appearance of the girl and repeat her
words. XXVII

A year and a half later Kuzma Vassilyevitch received a letter in
German from Emilie, _alias_ Frederika Bengel, which he promptly
had translated for him and showed us more than once in later days.