And as to the service the jade could be to him!... as though he would ever deign to get astride of him? Never! on no consideration!!... He would sell him to a Tartar for dog's meat--it deserved no better end....

Yes, that would be best!'

For more than two hours Tchertop-hanov wandered up and down his room.

'Perfishka!' he called peremptorily all of a sudden, 'run this minute to the tavern; fetch a gallon of vodka! Do you hear? A gallon, and look sharp! I want the vodka here this very second on the table!'

The vodka was not long in making its appearance on Panteley Eremyitch's table, and he began drinking.

XIII

If anyone had looked at Tchertop-hanov then; if anyone could have been a witness of the sullen exasperation with which he drained gla.s.s after gla.s.s--he would inevitably have felt an involuntary shudder of fear. The night came on, the tallow candle burnt dimly on the table.

Tchertop-hanov ceased wandering from corner to corner; he sat all flushed, with dull eyes, which he dropped at one time on the floor, at another fixed obstinately on the dark window; he got up, poured out some vodka, drank it off, sat down again, again fixed his eyes on one point, and did not stir--only his breathing grew quicker and his face still more flushed. It seemed as though some resolution were ripening within him, which he was himself ashamed of, but which he was gradually getting used to; one single thought kept obstinately and undeviatingly moving up closer and closer, one single image stood out more and more distinctly, and under the burning weight of heavy drunkenness the angry irritation was replaced by a feeling of ferocity in his heart, and a vindictive smile appeared on his lips.

'Yes, the time has come!' he declared in a matter-of-fact, almost weary tone. 'I must get to work.'

He drank off the last gla.s.s of vodka, took from over his bed the pistol--the very pistol from which he had shot at Masha--loaded it, put some cartridges in his pocket--to be ready for anything--and went round to the stables.

The watchman ran up to him when he began to open the door, but he shouted to him: 'It's I! Are you blind? Get out!' The watchman moved a little aside. 'Get out and go to bed!' Tchertop-hanov shouted at him again: 'there's nothing for you to guard here! A mighty wonder, a treasure indeed to watch over!' He went into the stable. Malek-Adel...

the spurious Malek-Adel, was lying on his litter. Tchertop-hanov gave him a kick, saying, 'Get up, you brute!' Then he unhooked a halter from a nail, took off the horsecloth and flung it on the ground, and roughly turning the submissive horse round in the box, led it out into the courtyard, and from the yard into the open country, to the great amazement of the watchman, who could not make out at all where the master was going off to by night, leading an unharnessed horse. He was, of course, afraid to question him, and only followed him with his eyes till he disappeared at the bend in the road leading to a neighbouring wood.

XIV

Tchertop-hanov walked with long strides, not stopping nor looking round.

Malek-Adel--we will call him by that name to the end--followed him meekly. It was a rather clear night; Tchertop-hanov could make out the jagged outline of the forest, which formed a black ma.s.s in front of him.

When he got into the chill night air, he would certainly have thrown off the intoxication of the vodka he had drunk, if it had not been for another, stronger intoxication, which completely over-mastered him. His head was heavy, his blood pulsed in thuds in his throat and ears, but he went on steadily, and knew where he was going.

He had made up his mind to kill Malek-Adel; he had thought of nothing else the whole day.... Now he had made up his mind!

He went out to do this thing not only calmly, but confidently, unhesitatingly, as a man going about something from a sense of duty.

This 'job' seemed a very 'simple' thing to him; in making an end of the impostor, he was quits with 'everyone' at once--he punished himself for his stupidity, and made expiation to his real darling, and showed the whole world (Tchertop-hanov worried himself a great deal about the 'whole world') that he was not to be trifled with.... And, above all, he was making an end of himself too with the impostor--for what had he to live for now? How all this took shape in his brain, and why, it seemed to him so simple--it is not easy to explain, though not altogether impossible; stung to the quick, solitary, without a human soul near to him, without a halfpenny, and with his blood on fire with vodka, he was in a state bordering on madness, and there is no doubt that even in the absurdest freaks of mad people there is, to their eyes, a sort of logic, and even justice. Of his justice Tchertop-hanov was, at any rate, fully persuaded; he did not hesitate, he made haste to carry out sentence on the guilty without giving himself any clear definition of whom he meant by that term.... To tell the truth, he reflected very little on what he was about to do. 'I must, I must make an end,' was what he kept stupidly and severely repeating to himself; 'I must make an end!'

And the guiltless guilty one followed in a submissive trot behind his back.... But there was no pity for him in Tchertop-hanov's heart.

XV

Not far from the forest to which he was leading his horse there stretched a small ravine, half overgrown with young oak bushes.

Tchertop-hanov went down into it.... Malek-Adel stumbled and almost fell on him.

'So you would crush me, would you, you d.a.m.ned brute!' shouted Tchertop-hanov, and, as though in self-defence, he pulled the pistol out of his pocket. He no longer felt furious exasperation, but that special numbness of the senses which they say comes over a man before the perpetration of a crime. But his own voice terrified him--it sounded so wild and strange under the cover of dark branches in the close, decaying dampness of the forest ravine! Moreover, in response to his exclamation, some great bird suddenly fluttered in a tree-top above his head...

Tchertop-hanov shuddered. He had, as it were, roused a witness to his act--and where? In that silent place where he should not have met a living creature....

'Away with you, devil, to the four winds of heaven!' he muttered, and letting go Malek-Adel's rein, he gave him a violent blow on the shoulder with the b.u.t.t end of the pistol. Malek-Adel promptly turned back, clambered out of the ravine... and ran away. But the thud of his hoofs was not long audible. The rising wind confused and blended all sounds together.

Tchertop-hanov too slowly clambered out of the ravine, reached the forest, and made his way along the road homewards. He was ill at ease with himself; the weight he had felt in his head and his heart had spread over all his limbs; he walked angry, gloomy, dissatisfied, hungry, as though some one had insulted him, s.n.a.t.c.hed his prey, his food from him....

The suicide, baffled in his intent, must know such sensations.

Suddenly something poked him behind between his shoulder blades. He looked round.... Malek-Adel was standing in the middle of the road. He had walked after his master; he touched him with his nose to announce himself.

'Ah!' shouted Tchertop-hanov,' of yourself, of yourself you have come to your death! So, there!'

In the twinkling of an eye he had s.n.a.t.c.hed out his pistol, drawn the trigger, turned the muzzle on Malek-Adel's brow, fired....

The poor horse sprung aside, rose on its haunches, bounded ten paces away, and suddenly fell heavily, and gasped as it writhed upon the ground....

Tchertop-hanov put his two hands over his ears and ran away. His knees were shaking under him. His drunkenness and revenge and blind self-confidence--all had flown at once. There was left nothing but a sense of shame and loathing--and the consciousness, unmistakeable, that this time he had put an end to himself too.

XVI

Six weeks later, the groom Perfishka thought it his duty to stop the commissioner of police as he happened to be pa.s.sing Bezsonovo.

'What do you want?' inquired the guardian of order.

'If you please, your excellency, come into our house,' answered the groom with a low bow.

'Panteley Eremyitch, I fancy, is about to die; so that I'm afraid of getting into trouble.'

'What? die?' queried the commissioner.

'Yes, sir. First, his honour drank vodka every day, and now he's taken to his bed and got very thin. I fancy his honour does not understand anything now. He's lost his tongue completely.'

The commissioner got out of his trap.

'Have you sent for the priest, at least? Has your master been confessed?

Taken the sacrament?'

'No, sir!'

The commissioner frowned. 'How is that, my boy? How can that be--hey?

Don't you know that for that... you're liable to have to answer heavily--hey?'

'Indeed, and I did ask him the day before yesterday, and yesterday again,' protested the intimidated groom. "Wouldn't you, Panteley Eremyitch," says I, "let me run for the priest, sir?" "You hold your tongue, idiot," says he; "mind your own business." But to-day, when I began to address him, his honour only looked at me, and twitched his moustache.'

'And has he been drinking a great deal of vodka?' inquired the commissioner.

'Rather! But if you would be so good, your honour, come into his room.'