Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories eBook

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.  It was full of mistakes in spelling and exclamation marks; the postmark on the envelope was Breslau.  Here is the translation, as correct as may be, of the letter: 

“My precious, unforgettable and incomparable Florestan!  Mr. Lieutenant Yergenhof!

“How often I felt impelled to write to you!  And I have always unfortunately put it off, though the thought that you may regard me as having had a hand in that awful crime has always been the most appalling thought to me!  Oh, dear Mr. Lieutenant!  Believe me, the day when I learnt that you were alive and well, was the happiest day of my life!  But I do not mean to justify myself altogether!  I will not tell a lie!  I was the first to discover your habit of carrying your money round your waist! (Though indeed in our part of the world all the butchers and meat salesmen do the same!) And I was so incautious as to let drop a word about it!  I even said in joke that it wouldn’t be bad to take a little of your money!  But the old wretch (Mr. Florestan! she was not my aunt) plotted with that godless monster Luigi and his accomplice!  I swear by my mother’s tomb, I don’t know to this day who those people were!  I only know that his name was Luigi and that they both came from Bucharest and were certainly great criminals and were hiding