PREMEDITATED CRIME

by Witold Gombrowicz

Translated from the Polish by Christopher Makosa

      Last winter I was obliged to visit the landowner Ignacy K. to settle certain matters of estate. Having gotten several days' leave of absence, I entrusted the assistant magistrate with my duties and sent a wire: "Tuesday, six p.m., carriage, please." However, I arrived at the station and saw no carriage waiting for me. I made inquiries - my telegram had been delivered in good order. The addressee had collected it in person the day before. Nolens volens [15] I had to rent a private cart, and load a trunk and a dressing case on it - and in the dressing case I had a small bottle of eau de Cologne, Vegetal perfume, an almond-scented toilet soap, a file, and a pair of nail clippers. And so, for four hours I bumped along through the fields at night, in silence, during the thaw. I shivered in my city-style overcoat, stared at the driver's back and, my teeth chattering, thought to myself: how can he expose his back like that! How can he sit with his back turned all the time, often in the wilderness, and be at the mercy of those sitting behind him?!
      At last we drew up in front of a wooden country manor - it was dark, only one window, on the second floor, was lighted. I knocked on the door - it was closed; I knocked harder - nothing, quiet. Attacked by watchdogs, I had to beat a hasty retreat to the cart. In turn, my driver began to bang on the door. "These people aren't very hospitable," I thought to myself.
      Finally the door opened and revealed a tall, slightly built man of about thirty, with a small blond mustache and a lantern in his hand.
"What is it?" he asked as though roused from sleep, raising the lantern.
"Haven't you received my wire? I'm H."
"H.? What H.?" He demanded, peering into my face. "Go with God," he suddenly said in a low voice, as if he had noticed some identifying mark - he looked away, his hand gripping the lantern even harder. "Go with God, go with God, sir! Good night, and God bless!" he said and withdrew hastily into the house.
      This time I said in a harsher tone:
"I'm sorry, sir. Yesterday I sent a telegram announcing my visit. I'm the examining magistrate H. I'd like to see Mr. K.- and if I couldn't come sooner, this was only because no carriage was sent to the station for me."
      He moved the lantern aside.
"Yes, that's right," he replied pensively after a moment; my tone had made no impression on him. "That's right… we did receive your wire… you're very welcome."
      Now, what did I find out? The young man (who was the owner's son) told me in the anteroom that, quite simply, they had...completely forgotten about my visit and the telegram they had received the previous day in the morning. Explaining myself and apologizing politely for the incursion, I took off my overcoat and hung it up on a peg. He ushered me into a small drawing room where, seeing us, a young woman started from the sofa with a slight "oh." "This is my sister." "Oh, I'm very pleased to meet you!" I was really very pleased to meet her because there is never any harm in femininity - not even when it involves some hidden intentions. But the hand she offered me was drenched in sweat - since when does a woman offer a man a sweaty hand? - and the femininity itself, despite the charming face, was sort of, I don't know, sweaty and indifferent, devoid of any reaction, slovenly and unkempt.
      We sat in old-style red armchairs and started some small talk. However, our preliminary civilities immediately encountered some vague resistance and, rather than flowing freely, the whole conversation proceeded in fits and starts. I: "I'm sure you were surprised to hear someone knocking on the door at this hour?" They: "Knocking? Oh, yes..." I, politely: "I'm really sorry to bother you, but otherwise I'd probably have to ride all over the fields all night long, like Don Quichote, ha, ha!" They (stiffly and quietly, and without finding it proper to respond to my quip with so much as a conventional smile): "Oh, you're very welcome, by all means." What was that all about? It was really strange - it seemed as if they felt offended with me or were afraid of me or pitied me or were ashamed for me…Wedged into their armchairs, they avoided eye contact with me and didn't look at each other, bearing my company with intense annoyance - it seemed that they were absorbed only with themselves and did nothing but shudder at the thought that I might say something insulting. Finally, I became annoyed. What were they afraid of? What was so disturbing about me? What was the meaning of this aristocratic, timid and proud demeanor? However, when I asked about the purpose of my visit, i.e. Mr. K., the brother looked at the sister and the sister at the brother, as though one was waiting for the other to begin. Finally, the brother swallowed hard and said distinctly, distinctly and solemnly, as if it were terribly important: "Yes, he is at home."
      It sounded as though he actually wanted to say: "The King, my Father, is at home!"
      The supper was also somewhat bizarre. It was served carelessly and not without disdain for the food and for myself. The gusto with which, being hungry, I devoured God's gifts, seemed to scandalize even the solemn-looking butler Szczepan, not to mention the brother and sister, who were listening in silence to the noises I was making over the plate - and you know how hard it is to swallow when somebody is listening: against your will, every morsel falls down your throat with an awful plop. The brother's name was Antoni, and the sister's, Cecylia.
      Suddenly I looked up: who was coming in? A deposed queen? No, it was the mother, Mrs. K.: she sailed slowly into the room, offered me her ice-cold hand, gazed at me with a bit of dignified surprise and sat down without a word. She was stout, short and on the plump side - one of those old country matrons who are unyielding about all principles, especially the proprieties - and she looked at me sternly, with utter surprise, as though she had noticed an obscene phrase on my forehead. With her hand Cecylia made a gesture meant either to explain or justify, but her gesture froze halfway and the atmosphere became even more strained and oppressive.
"You must be very unhappy with this…unnecessary trip," said Mrs. K. all of a sudden - but in what tone?! In an aggrieved tone or in the tone of a queen whose subjects have neglected to bow down before her for the third time - as if the eating of pork chops constituted crimen laesae maiestatis! [16]
"Your pork chops are delicious!" I replied with anger, for inadvertently I felt increasingly vulgar, foolish and uneasy.
"Our pork chops - our pork chops…"
"Antoni hasn't said anything yet, Mama," Cecylia, who was shy and quiet as a mouse, blurted out all of a sudden.
"What do you mean, he hasn't said anything? What do you mean, he hasn't said anything? You really haven't said anything yet?"
"What's that for, Mama?" Antoni whispered, turned pale and clenched his teeth, as though he was about to sit in a dentist's chair.
"Antoni…"
"But why…why bother? It doesn't matter…what's the point - there'll always be time for it," he said and fell silent.
"Antoni, how can you, how… what do you mean, there's no point?"
"It doesn't… doesn't matter…"
"Poor baby!" whispered the mother, smoothing his hair; but he thrust her arm away brusquely.
"My husband," she announced dryly, addressing me, "has passed away tonight." What…?! He's dead? Oh, so that's what it's all about! I stopped eating - put aside the knife and fork - and quickly swallowed the morsel of food I had in my mouth. How could it possibly happen? After all, he collected the telegram at the station as recently as yesterday! I looked at them: all three of them waited with an air of modesty and solemnity, though with set and hard faces and pursed lips; they waited stiffly - what were they waiting for? Oh, yes - I had to offer my condolences!
      It happened so unexpectedly that I completely lost my poise at first. Embarrassed, I rose from the chair and mumbled indistinctly something like: "I'm very sorry…my sympathies…pardon me." I fell silent, but they still didn't react to it; for them it was still too little. They stood without a word, with downcast eyes, impassive faces and in sloppy clothes: he was unshaven, they were unkempt and their fingernails dirty. I cleared my throat, casting frantically around for something appropriate to say, for a proper phrase, but my mind, as you may imagine, was a massive void, a desert - and they waited, stricken with grief. They waited without looking at me - Antoni drummed his fingers lightly on the tabletop, Cecylia plucked shyly at the hem of her soiled dress, and the mother stood motionless, as though petrified, with the stern unyielding expression of a matron. I felt bad, even though I had handled hundreds of death cases as an examining magistrate. However…how shall I put it - an ugly murdered dead person covered with a quilt is one thing, and a respectable person lying in state, who has died a death of natural causes, quite another; a certain unceremoniousness is one thing and an honest death, a death accustomed to deference, to good manners, a death, so to speak, displayed in its full majesty, is quite another thing. No, let me repeat: I wouldn't have felt so confused if they had immediately told me everything. But they were too embarrassed. They were too afraid. I don't know if this was simply because I was an intruder or perhaps because, under these circumstances, they felt somewhat ashamed because of the official nature of my job, due to a certain…matter-of-fact approach, which I must have acquired through the years of practice; but, in any case, their shame somehow made me awfully ashamed - in fact, it made me inordinately ashamed.
      I stammered something about the attachment and respect I felt for the deceased. Remembering that I hadn't seen him since my schooldays, of which they might have known, I added: "during my schooldays." Since they still didn't respond - and, after all, somehow I had to bring the matter to an end, get it over with - for want of anything better to say, I asked: "May I see the corpse?" - but somehow the word "corpse" sounded highly inappropriate. Apparently, my embarrassment appeased the widow - she mournfully burst into tears and offered me her hand, which I kissed with humility.
"Tonight," she said, half-conscious, "tonight …I get up in the morning…come into the room…call - Ignacy - Ignacy - no answer, then I see him lying…I fainted... fainted… And my hands have been shaking all the time ever since - look at that!"
"What's the point, Mama?"
"They're shaking…shaking all the time," she said, raising her arms.
"Mama," Antoni, off to one side, said once more in an undertone.
"They're shaking, shaking - look: they're shaking like leaves…"
"It doesn't...doesn't matter…who cares? For shame!" he blurted out brutally and, wheeling suddenly around, walked away. "Antoni!" the mother exclaimed in terror. "Cecylia, go after him…" And I remained standing, stared at the shaking hands, had absolutely nothing to say and felt increasingly confused and embarrassed.
      All of a sudden, the widow said quietly: "You wanted… let's go, then…upstairs... I'll show you the way." Today, while reviewing the matter with detachment, essentially I believe I had the right to enjoy myself and the pork chops at that time - that is, I could or actually should have replied: "I'm at your service - but let me finish the pork chops first because I haven't had anything to eat since noon." It's possible that if I had said so, the course of many a tragic event would have been changed. But was it my fault that she had terrorized me to such an extent that my pork chops, as well as yours truly, seemed trivial and unworthy of mention? And, all of a sudden, I felt so ashamed that the mere thought of that shame makes me blush to this day.
      On the way to the second floor, where the deceased lay, the widow whispered to herself: "Appalling misfortune…what a blow, what a terrible blow…The children didn't say anything. They're proud, difficult, secretive, they won't reveal their secrets to any stranger, they'd rather worry themselves sick in solitude. They take after me, after me…Oh, I'm afraid Antoni might hurt himself! He's so tough and uncompromising that he even hates to see my hands shake. He didn't let anyone touch the body - but after all, we have to do something, give some instructions. He didn't cry, didn't cry at all…Oh, if he had only shed a single tear!"
      She pushed open some door - and I had to kneel with bent head and concentration on my face, while she was standing off to one side, solemn and motionless, as though she was holding the Holy Sacrament.
      The deceased lay in bed - just as he had died - the only difference being that he had been laid up on his back. The livid, swollen face bore witness to death by suffocation, as is usually the case with heart attacks.
"He was strangled," I whispered, even though I knew perfectly well that he had died of a heart attack.
"It was the heart, sir, the heart…He died of a heart attack…"
"Well, sometimes the heart can turn into a strangler…believe me…" I said glumly. As she was still waiting, I crossed myself and said a prayer; and then (she was still waiting), I said quietly:
"Look at that dignified face!"
      Her hands began to shake so violently that I thought it would probably be proper to kiss them once more. She didn't react with the slightest stir, standing on like a cypress [17], staring sorrowfully at some point on the wall - and the longer she stood like that, the more difficult it was for me not to show her a little kindness. It was required by common decency, so I couldn't avoid it. I rose from my knees, needlessly flicked some speck of dust off my clothes, coughed quietly - while she remained standing. Rumpled, slovenly, she stood with ardor, in silence, looking on, like Niobe, with a fixed stare, her eyes focused on memories, and a small drop appeared at the tip of her nose, and dangled, dangled…like the sword of Damocles [18] - and the candles smoked. After a few minutes, I tried to say something quietly - she sprang up as if something had bitten her, made a few steps forward and stopped again. I knelt. What an unbearable situation! What a dilemma for somebody so sensitive and, above all, so touchy as myself! Although I didn't suspect her of deliberate malice, no one could deny that there was malice in it. Nobody could convince me that there wasn't! It wasn't her - it was her malice which impudently delighted in my mincing around before her and the corpse.
      Kneeling two paces from that corpse, the first I couldn't touch, I stared blankly at the quilt, which covered it smoothly up to its armpits, and at the hands, which lay neatly folded on the quilt - there were potted plants at the foot of the bed, and the face emerged faintly from the depression of the pillow. I looked now at the flowers and then at the face of the deceased, but nothing was coming to my mind, except for the strangely intrusive thought that I was watching some stage-managed theatrical scene. Everything seemed to have been staged: there - the corpse, proud, untouchable, its indifferent closed eyes focused on the ceiling; beside it - the mournful widow; here - I, the examining magistrate, kneeling like a savage muzzled dog. "What would happen if I got up, approached the corpse, pulled the quilt off of it and examined it - if I could at least touch it - touch it with the tip of my finger." This is what I thought - but the solemn integrity of death nails us to the spot, while grief and virtue prevent us from sacrilege. Get away! Forbidden! Hands off! On your knees! "What is this?" I thought slowly, "who staged it like that? I'm an ordinary, common man - I'm not suited for such histrionics…I wouldn't advise anyone... Damn!" I suddenly lapsed into thought. "What nonsense! Where did I get that idea? Am I playacting? Where did I pick up such artificiality, affectation - after all, on the whole I'm completely different - did I catch that from them? What is this - since I came here, all my actions have been affected and pretentious, as though performed by a poor actor. I've completely lost myself in this house and I'm playacting horribly." "Hmm," I whispered, but again not without a certain theatrical pose (as though I was already drawn into the play and couldn't return to normality), "I wouldn't advise anyone…I wouldn't advise anyone to make a demon of me because I might be willing to accept the challenge..." Meanwhile, the widow had wiped her nose and made for the door, saying something to herself, clearing her throat and gesticulating.
      When I finally found myself alone in my room, I removed my collar [19] and, instead of putting it on the table, flung it on the ground, and then trampled it under foot. My face contorted and flushed with blood, and my fist clenched tightly in a way that was quite unexpected to me. Obviously, I was furious. "They've made a fool of me." I whispered. "That madwoman…they arranged everything so cleverly. They want me to pay homage to themselves - and to kiss their hands! They demand affection from me! Affection! They want me to pussyfoot with them! But I, shall we say, hate that. And I, shall we say, hate being forced to kiss someone's shaking hands; I hate being compelled to utter prayers, kneel, make unnatural and disgustingly ingratiating sounds; but, above all, I hate tears, sighs and a drop dangling from a nose; on the contrary, I like neatness and order."
      "Hmm," I cleared my throat pensively after a pause, but in a different tone - cautious and tentative, as it were, "so they want me to kiss their hands? I should kiss their feet because it's clear what I am in comparison with the majesty of death and this familial grief…? Nothing but a vulgar, soulless police sleuth - my true nature has come to light. But …hmm… I don't know if they aren't too rash; yes, in their place, I would be slightly more careful …a little more modest…because they should probably take my odious character into consideration, and even if not my…private character, then...then... at least my official character. They've overlooked that. In any case, I am, after all, an examining magistrate and there is, after all, a corpse here, and the idea of a corpse is somehow associated - and not very innocently at that - with that of an examining magistrate. And what would I discover," I thought slowly, "if I considered the course of events, for example, from the viewpoint…hmm…of an examining magistrate?"
      "Here you are: a visitor arrives, who - by coincidence - happens to be an examining magistrate. The people he came to see don't send the carriage for him and don't open the door - so they're making things difficult for him and are anxious not to let him into the house. Then they receive him reluctantly, with ill-masked anger, with apprehension - but why be afraid, why become angry at the sight of an examining magistrate? They conceal and hold back something from him - and eventually it turns out that what they conceal is ... a dead man who has died of strangulation in a room upstairs. That's ugly! And when the corpse is exposed they do their best to force him to kneel and kiss their hands on the pretext that the deceased has died a death of natural causes!"
      Those who would call this idea absurd or even ridiculous (for, to be frank, how can anyone stretch the truth to such an extent?) shouldn't forget that I trampled my collar in anger a moment ago - my sanity was limited and my senses blunted by the offense I had taken, and so it was clear that I couldn't take full responsibility for my follies.
      Looking straight ahead, I said solemnly:
"Something isn't right here."
      And I began, with all my acumen, to piece together the chain of facts, form syllogisms [20], gather up the threads and seek circumstantial evidence. But soon, tired of the futility of my exertions, I fell asleep. "Yes, yes... the majesty of death is definitely worthy of respect and no one can claim that I didn't pay it due honors - yet not all deaths are equally majestic and, before this situation gets clarified, I wouldn't be so self-confident in their place, especially since the case is murky, complex and dubious ... hmm ... hmm... as indicated by all the circumstantial evidence."
      The next day in the morning, drinking coffee in bed, I noticed that a young manservant - a stocky, drowsy-looking boy - was glancing at me with a faint glimmer of curiosity while stoking the furnace. I was sure he knew who I was - and so I struck up a conversation with him:
"So your Master died?"
"He sure did."
"Say, how many servants are there here?"
"Not including myself, there's Szczepan and the cook, sir. Including myself, there's three people."
"The Master died in the room upstairs?"
"He sure died upstairs," he said indifferently, feeding the fire and ballooning his fleshy cheeks.
"And where do you people sleep?"
He stopped blowing and looked at me - but this time he gave me a sharp look.
"Szczepan and the cook sleep next to the kitchen, and I sleep in the servants' quarters."
"You mean you can pass into the rooms from the place where Szczepan and the cook sleep only through the servants' quarters ?" I went on asking him with a casual air.
"There ain't no other way," he answered, and now gave an utterly sharp look.
"And the Mistress, where does she sleep?"
"The Mistress used to sleep with the Master - and now she sleeps next to the Master, in the other room."
"Since the Master died?"
"Oh no, she moved out way before that, about a week ago."
"You wouldn't know why the Mistress moved out of the Master's room?"
"How should I know that..."
I asked him one more question:
"And where does the young Master sleep?"
"Downstairs, next to the dining room."
      I got up and dressed with care. "Hmm ... hmm ...So, unless I'm mistaken, there is one more telltale piece of circumstantial evidence - an interesting detail." At any rate, one wondered why the wife abandoned the master bedroom one week before her husband's death. Was she afraid to contract a heart disease? That would have been an inordinate fear, to put it mildly. Only no premature conclusions, no hasty moves - and I went down into the dining room. The widow was standing by the window - her hands clasped, she was staring at the coffee cup - she whispered something monotonously, fervently shaking her head, a wet handkerchief in her hands. When I approached her, she suddenly began to pace around the table in the opposite direction, still whispering and waving her one arm about as if she were insane. However, I had already recovered the poise I had lost the day before and, standing aside, waited patiently for her to notice me at last.
"Oh, good-bye, good-bye, sir," she said unthinkingly, seeing me bow. "It's been very nice meeting you..."
"Excuse me," I whispered, "I ... I ... am not leaving yet. I'd like to stay on a little longer…"
"Oh, it's you…," she said. She hinted that the body should be removed from the house and even favored me with the feeble question: "Would you stay for the funeral?"
"I esteem it a great honor," I replied piously. How could I refuse to pay my last respects to the dead man? "Would you mind if I saw the body once more?" I asked. Without replying or looking back to see if I was following her, she mounted the creaky stairs.
      After a brief prayer I rose and, as though contemplating the riddle of life and death, looked around. "Strange!" I said to myself, "interesting!" Judging by appearances, the man had undoubtedly died a death of natural causes. Although his face was swollen and livid, like that of a strangled person, there were neither any signs of violence on the body nor in the room. In fact, one could assume that he had peacefully died of a heart attack. Despite that, however, I suddenly approached the bed and touched the corpse's neck with my finger.
      This slight move had an electrifying effect on the widow. She sprang up.
"What're you doing?" she shouted. "What're you doing? What're you doing?"
"Poor lady, don't get upset like that," I replied, and without further ceremony carried out a detailed examination of the corpse's neck and of the whole room! Ceremonies are good only up to a point! We wouldn't go very far if ceremoniousness got in the way of making a detailed examination, when required. Alas! - there were literally neither any traces on the body nor on top of the commode; neither behind the wardrobe nor on the small rug before the bed. The only noteworthy thing was an enormous dead cockroach. However, a certain clue appeared in the widow's face - she stood motionless, watching me with an air of vague terror.
      I therefore asked her as guardedly as possible: "Why did you move into your daughter's room a week ago?"
"Me? Why? Me? Why did I move? How do you ... my son persuaded me ... so there would be more fresh air. My husband was suffocating at night ... but why did you...? Actually why are you ... what are you...?"
"Please forgive me... I'm sorry - but..." - and, rather than finishing the sentence, I lapsed into meaningful silence.
      She revealed a certain understanding - as if she had suddenly grasped the fact that I was talking to her in my official capacity.
"But, after all ... what do you mean? After all ... after all, you ... you haven't found anything?"
      Clearly, there was a note of fear in her voice. Instead of answering, I cleared my throat. "Anyway," I said dryly, "I'd like to ask you...I believe you said something about removing the body...Well, I must ask you to leave the body in the house until tomorrow morning."
"Oh, Ignacy!" she exclaimed.
"Exactly!" I replied.
"Oh, Ignacy! What do you mean? That's impossible, I can't do that," she declared, giving the corpse a blank stare. "Oh, Ignacy!"
      And - how interesting! - she suddenly broke off, stiffened, squashed me with a look, and left the room deeply offended. A question - why take offense? Why did she take the violent death of her husband as a personal insult, when she had nothing to do with that death? What's so insulting about violent death? It may be an insult to the murderer, but certainly not to the dead person or his relatives! But, for the time being, I had something more urgent to do than ask such rhetorical questions. Left alone with the corpse, I once more began to conduct a detailed examination: but the longer I conducted it, the more surprised I was. "Not a thing!" I whispered, "nothing but the cockroach behind the commode." One could really assume that there were no grounds for further action.
      Ha! There was a problem with the corpse which, as every professional could see, attested loudly and clearly to the fact that it had died of an ordinary heart attack. All outward appearances - the absence of a carriage, the reluctance to cooperate, the fear, the concealment - testified to a vague something, while the corpse, staring at the ceiling, declared: I died of a heart attack! It was a physical and medical certainty, a sure thing - no one murdered him for the simple and conclusive reason that he was not murdered at all. I had to admit that most of my colleagues would have discontinued the inquest at that point. But not me! I already looked too ridiculous, was too vindictive and had already gone too far. I lifted my finger and knit my brows: crime does not occur of its own accord, gentlemen, crime must be worked out in the mind, thought out, thought up - nobody will give you the murder weapon on a silver platter. "When appearances militate against crime," I said wisely, "let's be cunning and let's not be fooled by appearances. But when, on the contrary, logic, sound judgment or, indeed, hard evidence become the criminal's advocate, and when appearances speak against him, let's trust appearances and let's not allow logic and evidence lead us up the garden path." Good...but, appearances notwithstanding, how - as Dostoevski says - do you make a roast rabbit without a rabbit? [21] I was staring at the corpse, and the corpse was staring at the ceiling, denying all allegations of violence on the ground of its inviolate neck. That was the difficulty! That was the hitch! But if you can't remove a hurdle, you have to jump over it - hic Rhodus, hic salta! [22] Could that inanimate object with human features, which I could take in my hand if I wanted to - could that frozen face put up real resistance to my mobile, changeable features that were capable of finding an expression suitable for every situation? And while the visage of the corpse remained the same - calm but somewhat swollen - my face expressed solemn cunning, foolish conceit and self-assurance, exactly as if I wanted to say: I'm an old fox and won't let anyone fool me!
      "Yes," I said with solemnity, "the obvious fact is: the deceased was strangled."
      It's possible that a devious defense attorney might try to argue that the decedent was suffocated by a heart attack. Hmm, hmm… I'm not going to fall for such legal ploys. The heart is a highly expansible and even symbolic term. Who would be happy to hear, on the sensational news of a crime, that it was nothing - that the man was suffocated by the heart? Excuse me, what heart? We know how complex and multi-faceted the heart can be; oh, the heart is a carryall that can carry a great deal - the cold heart of a murderer; the flinty heart of a libertine; the faithful heart of a mistress; a warm heart, an ungrateful heart, a jealous heart, an envious heart, etc.
      The trampled cockroach seemed to bear no direct relation to the crime. So far, I had established one thing: the deceased had been strangled, and the strangulation was of a cardiac type. I could also say that, judging by the lack of bodily injuries, the strangulation was definitely internal in nature. Yes, that was all… internal and cardiac - no more. No premature conclusions - and now it would be a good idea to snoop around the house a little bit.
      I returned downstairs. When I entered the dining room, I heard the sound of light, hurrying footsteps - could it be Miss Cecylia K.? Hey, it's no good running away, young lady - truth will always find you out! Having passed the dining room - the servants, who were laying the table for dinner, glanced at me furtively - I slowly ventured into the other rooms, noticing Antoni's receding back somewhere in the doorway. "As regards an internal death of a cardiac type," I mused, "I have to admit that this old house is more suitable for it than any other. Strictly speaking, there may be nothing explicitly incriminating here - however…," I sniffed, "however... there is panic and some smell in the air, a peculiar smell - the kind of smell you can stand so long as it's your own, like the smell of sweat - a smell I would describe as the smell of familial affection..." Still sniffing, I made a mental note of certain minute details which, though tiny, didn't seem completely irrelevant. For example: faded, yellowed sheer curtains - hand-embroidered pillows - a large number of art photographs and portraits - chair seats bearing the imprint of the posteriors of many a generation… and besides: a discontinued letter on white lined paper - a dab of butter on a knife, on the sill in the drawing room - a glass of medicine on the commode - a blue ribbon behind the furnace - a cobweb, numerous wardrobes - old-house smells… All this combined to create an atmosphere of particular solicitude, great cordiality - here, the heart found nourishment for itself at every step; yes, the heart could indulge in the old butter, the sheer curtains, the ribbon, and the odors (and bread makes us self-indulgent, I've noticed). Moreover, I had to admit that the character of the house was exceptionally "internal," a fact which revealed itself primarily in the cotton stuffed in the windows and in the chipped saucer with a dried-up slice of fly poison, left over from the summer.
      However, in order to forestall any possible allegations that, due to a strong inclination toward some internal direction, I ignored all other options, I took the trouble of checking if indeed there was no passage from the service rooms into the living quarters other than through the servants' quarters - and I established that there wasn't. I even stepped outside and slowly, at an ostensibly relaxed pace, went around the house, walking through sodden snow. It seemed impossible for any stranger to get inside at night through the door or through the windows, which were fitted with huge shutters. Therefore, if any act was committed in that house at night, there was nobody I could suspect - with the possible exception of Stefan, the young manservant who was sleeping in the servants' quarters. "Yes," I said shrewdly, "it must have been Stefan, especially since he has a conniving look in his eyes."
      So saying, I pricked up my ears, for a voice reached me through a half-open small window; a voice which was completely different from the one I had heard some time ago; a delightful, promising voice which had nothing in common with a mournful queen and was racked by anxiety and terror; a tremulous, feeble, feminine voice which seemed to cheer me up and suited me fine. "Cecylia, Cecylia... look out the window... is he gone yet? Look out! Don't lean forward, don't lean forward - he may notice you! He may come over here - snoop around - did you put away the linen? What's he looking for? What did he find? Oh, Ignacy! Oh God, what did he inspect that furnace for, what did he want with the commode? Oh, it's horrible, all over the whole house! Me, I don't care, with me he can do whatever he wants, but Antoni, Antoni won't stand that! For him it's sacrilege! He turned pale so terribly when I told him about it - oh, I'm afraid he might not be strong enough."
      "However, if the crime was internal in nature, a fact which may be deemed to have been established during the inquest (I went on thinking) - then I'm obliged to admit that the murder committed by the young manservant, probably for the purpose of robbery, can in no way be regarded as a crime of an internal type. Suicide is a whole different matter - it's different when one kills oneself and everything goes on inside - and so is parricide where, in any case, it's the victim's own flesh and blood which does the killing. As for the cockroach, the murderer must have killed it carried away by the momentum."
      Thinking such thoughts, I sat down in the study with a cigarette - when suddenly Mr. Antoni K. entered. He greeted me when he saw me, although he did so a little more modestly than the first time; he even seemed somewhat distressed.
"It's a beautiful house you've got." I said. "It's remarkably peaceful in here, so cozy - that's what I call a real family home - it exudes such warmth... it reminds me of childhood, my mother, my mother in a robe, bitten fingernails, a missing handkerchief..."
"This house? This house... certainly... there are mice in here. But that's not the point. My mother tells me - I hear you ...I mean..."
"I know an excellent remedy for mice - Ratopex."
"Oh! - And...?"
"Oh, I really have to crack down on them with greater vigor - much greater vigor... I hear this morning you went to see ... Father ... I mean, pardon me - the body ..."
"Yes, I did."
"Oh - And ...?"
"And? And - what?"
"I hear you ... found something there..."
"Oh, yes - I found a dead cockroach."
"There are many dead cockroaches, too ... I mean - cockroaches ... I mean - cockroaches that are not dead."
"Did you love your father very much?" I asked, picking up from the table an album with photos of Kraków.
      My question clearly took him by surprise. No, he wasn't prepared for it; he hung his head, looked away, swallowed hard - and muttered with enormous constraint, almost with repulsion:
"Well enough..."
"Well enough? That's not very much. Well enough! That's it?"
"Why did you ask me that?" he demanded in a stifled voice.
"Why are you so affected?" I replied with sympathy, stooping close toward him paternally, with the album in my hands.
"Me - affected? How did you...?"
"Why did you turn pale now?"
"Me? Me - turn pale?"
"Well, look at you! You're glowering at me... you're not finishing your sentences... you're babbling about mice, cockroaches... your voice is now too loud, now too soft, either hoarse or so shrill that it pierces my ears... ," I went on seriously, "and you're making such nervous gestures... but then, all of you are, sort of - nervous and affected. Why is it like that, young man? Wouldn't you be better off mourning in a straightforward manner? Hmm... you loved him... well enough?! But why did you make your mother leave your father's bedroom a week ago?"
      Completely paralyzed by my words and not daring to move his arm or leg, he barely managed to stutter out:
"Me? What do you mean, why? Father... Father needed... fresh air..."
"Were you sleeping in your room downstairs that night?"
"Me? Naturally, in the room...in the room downstairs..."
      I cleared my throat and went to my room, leaving him in his small chair with hands on his knees, with lips tightly compressed and with legs pushed stiffly together. Hmm - obviously he was a nervous person. Nervous, shy, excessively tender, excessively emotional... However, I still kept my emotions in check, for I didn't want to scare away anyone or anything ahead of time. While I was washing hands and getting ready for dinner, Stefan, the young manservant, slipped into my room and asked if I needed anything. He looked like a man reborn! His eyes flitted around, his body language bespoke servile cunning, and all of his spiritual powers were excited in the extreme! I asked: "So what else is new?"
      He replied in one breath: "You asked me if I was sleeping in the servants' quarters on the night before last... I just wanna say that, that evening, the young Master locked the door to the servants' quarters on the side of the dining room." I asked: "Had the Master never locked that door before?" "Never, ever. He locked it only then and, besides, I'm sure he thought I was asleep, 'cause it was late - but I wasn't asleep yet, and I heard him approach the door and lock it. I don't know when he unlocked the door, 'cause I was asleep - he waked me up at dawn and told me our Master was dead, but the door was unlocked by then."
      Thus, for no apparent reason, the son of the deceased locked the door to the servants' quarters in the night! He locked the door to the servants' quarters - what could it possibly mean?
"Please don't tell anybody I told you that, sir."
      I had good reason, then, to refer to that death as internal! The door had been locked, so that no stranger would enter! The snare was becoming increasingly tight and I could better see the noose tightening around the murderer's neck. But why, rather than exulting in triumph, I only smiled a somewhat foolish smile? For, alas, I had to admit that I didn't have something at least as important as the noose around the murderer's neck, i.e. the noose around the neck of the deceased. Even though I had naively jumped over that obstacle by ignoring the inviolate white neck, I couldn't justify my behavior by heat of passion alone. Very well, I admit (off the record), I was furious; for some reason, hatred, repulsion and resentment had blinded me and made me insist on a flagrant absurdity - that's human and everyone would understand that. However, a time will come when I will have to settle down - Judgment Day, as the Holy Bible says, shall come. And then... hmm... I will say: "This is the murderer," while the corpse will say: "I died of a heart attack." And then what? What will the Judge say?
      Let's assume that the Judge says: "You allege that the deceased was murdered? Based on what evidence?"
      I will reply: "Because his family, Your Honor, his wife and children, and especially his son, behaved suspiciously, as though they had murdered him - no question about it."
"Very well, but how could he possibly have been murdered, when he was not murdered - when experts on forensic medicine demonstrated in their report, beyond reasonable doubt, that he had simply died of a heart attack?"
      And then that mercenary shyster, the defense attorney, will rise and, flapping the sleeves of his robe, will proceed to prove in a long speech that it was a misunderstanding stemming from my primitive way of thinking, that I confused crime with mourning - for that which I mistook for a manifestation of an unclear conscience was but a sign of the fearfulness of affection, which eludes and shrinks from the cold touch of a stranger. And the unbearable, exasperating refrain will recur - how could he possibly have been murdered, when he was not murdered at all and the body bore no trace of strangulation?
      This problem weighed on my mind to such an extent that - simply for my own sake, to relieve distress and gnawing doubts, without any other intentions - I began to prove at dinner that, in its essence, crime was not a physical, but a psychological phenomenon par excellance. Unless I'm mistaken, I was the only person to speak. Antoni didn't utter a single word: I don't know if he believed, as he had the previous evening, that I was unworthy of conversation or if he was afraid he might sound a little hoarse. The widow sat solemn and still seemed deeply insulted, while her hands were shaking in an attempt to secure impunity for themselves. Miss Cecylia K. was quietly sipping her too-hot drink. Inspired by the above-mentioned motives, unaware of the blunder I was making or of certain tensions in the atmosphere, I spoke eloquently, long and with panache. "Believe me, ladies and gentlemen, the physical shape of a criminal act - a mangled body, disorder in the room, all so-called trace clues - is but a minor detail or, strictly speaking, a mere addition to the crime proper, a forensic and legal formality, the murderer's bow toward the authorities. The crime proper is always committed in the soul. External details... my God! Let me relate the following incident to you: for no apparent reason, a nephew suddenly drives... a long old-fashioned hatpin into the back of his uncle, who has been showering him with favors for the last thirty years! There you have it! - such a great psychological crime, and such a small indiscernible physical trace: a tiny hole in the back from a pinprick. In order to justify his deed, the nephew later contended that, due to distraction, he had mistaken his uncle's back for his cousin's hat. Who would believe him?
      Yes, yes, from the physical point of view, crime is a trifle; spiritually, however, it's a truly difficult matter. Due to the remarkable fragility of the human body, a person can commit a murder, like that nephew, by accident, due to distraction: bang! - and suddenly, goodness knows how, a dead body falls to the ground.
      In the middle of a honeymoon, a certain highly respectable woman, head over heels in love with her husband, notices an oblong white bug among the raspberries on her husband's plate - and it should be noted that the husband loathed those hideous caterpillars above everything else. Rather than warning him, she looks on with an arch smile and says: "You just ate a bug."
"No," shouts the husband, terrified.
"Oh, yes," says the wife and proceeds to describe it - it was such and such, plump, white. There is plenty of laughing and bantering going on; the husband, in mock anger, raises his arms heavenward, complaining about his wife's malice. They forget the whole affair. And after a week or two, the wife is greatly surprised when the husband loses weight, withers, throws up all meals, abhors his own hand and leg, and (pardon the expression) at first bows to the porcelain God on and off - and then, one might say, on and still on. A growing repulsion toward one's own body - what a dreadful affliction! One day there is a great deal of weeping, frightful moaning, he suddenly dies after throwing up his guts - in fact, only his head and throat remain because he vomits the rest into a pail. The widow is in despair - and it turns out on cross-examination that, in the innermost depths of her being, she felt a morbid passion for a powerful bulldog, which her husband had whipped shortly before eating the raspberries.
      Or in a certain aristocratic family, the son murdered his mother by repeating the annoying phrase "sit down, please!" over and over again. Throughout the judicial proceedings, he protested his innocence right up to the end. Oh, it's so easy to commit a crime that one wonders why so many people die a death of natural causes... especially when the heart comes into play, the heart - that secret link between people, that subterranean, tortuous conduit between you and me, that suction and force pump, which can wonderfully suck you and perfectly pump you dry... And when all is over, we go through the rigmarole of mourning, funereal faces, the dignity of grief, the majesty of death - ha, ha - all of them designed to induce us to "pay our respects" to suffering, but by no means to probe into the heart, which has cruelly murdered on the sly."
      They sat in perfect silence, not daring to interrupt! - where was that pride from the night before? Suddenly the widow, deathly pale, her hands trembling with a redoubled force, threw down the napkin and rose from the table. I spread my hands, saying: "I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I was only talking in a general way about the heart, about the chamber of the heart in which it's so easy to conceal a corpse."
"You scoundrel!" she exclaimed, her bosom undulating heavily. The son and the daughter started from the table.
"What about the door!" I exclaimed. "Fine - call me a scoundrel! But please tell me: why was the door locked that night?!"
      A pause. Suddenly Cecylia burst into nervous wailing sobs and says:
"The door - that wasn't Mama. I locked it! It was me!"
"That's not true, daughter, I ordered the door locked! Why are you demeaning yourself before that man?"
"You gave the order, but I wanted...I wanted...I also wanted to lock the door and it was I who locked it."
"Excuse me," I said, "hold on a minute...What're you saying? - (after all, it was Antoni who had locked the door to the servants' quarters)"... Which door are we talking about?"
"The door... the door to Papa's bedroom... I locked it!"
"It was I who locked it... I forbid you to say that, you hear? I gave the order!"
      How could it possibly happen?! So the women also locked the door? On the night the father was to die, the son locked the door to the servants' quarters, while mother and daughter locked the door to their room!
"And why did you, ladies, lock that door?" I demanded vehemently. "Why exactly that night? What was the reason?"
      Consternation! Silence! They didn't know! They hung their heads! A theatrical scene. Agitated, Antoni suddenly said: "Aren't you ashamed to explain yourselves before him? Be quiet! Let's leave here!"
"Then perhaps you will tell me why you locked the door to the servants' quarters that night, blocking the servants' passage into the rooms?"
"Me? Me - lock the door?"
"What, I suppose you didn't then? There are witnesses! That can be proved!"
      Another silence! More consternation! The women looked on with terror. At last the son, as though recalling something that happened a long time ago, announced soundlessly:
"Yes, I did lock that door!"
"But why - why did you lock it? Was it because of drafts?"
"I can't explain that," he said with indescribable haughtiness - and left the room.
      I spent the remainder of the day in my room. Without lighting the candle, I paced up and down a long time, from wall to wall. Outside, the twilight murk was deepening - patches of snow stood out more and more visibly against the falling shadow of night, while the house was beset by the tangled skeletons of trees on all sides. What a house that was! The house of murderers, a monstrous house with a cold-blooded, masked, premeditated murderer on the prowl; the house of stranglers! The heart?! I knew right away what to expect from that well-fed heart and what parricide that heart, swollen from fat, butter and familial warmth, could commit! I knew it, but didn't want to reveal it ahead of time! Oh, the way they were putting on airs! They expected me to pay homage to them! Affection? They'd better say why they locked the doors!
      But why - now that I had all the threads in my hand and could point my finger at the criminal - was I wasting time instead of taking action? There was a hitch, a hitch - the white intact neck - and the darker it was, the whiter the neck became, like that snow outside. Evidently, the corpse was in league with a gang of murderers. Once again, I summoned up my strength and attacked the corpse up front, head on - calling a spade a spade and clearly pointing my finger at the murderer. It was like fighting a chair. No matter how hard I strained my imagination, intuition and logic, the neck remained a neck and the whiteness the same whiteness, with the characteristic stubbornness of an inanimate object. Therefore, all I could do was to playact right up to the end and remain in a state of vindictive blindness and absurdity, and wait, expecting naively that, if the corpse was unwilling, then maybe the crime, like oil in water, would rise to the surface of its own accord. Was I lazing around? Yes, but the house echoed with the sound of my footsteps, everyone could hear me pacing back and forth, and surely they, down there, weren't idling away the time.
      Suppertime had passed. It was approaching eleven o'clock, but I didn't budge from my room; instead, I hurled abuse at them, calling them a pack of rogues and criminals. I felt triumphant and trusted deep down inside, with the last remnants of my strength, that my stubbornness and perseverance would be rewarded - that, after all, something must give after all these endeavors, these various facial expressions and this passion; that in the end, all resistance would be overcome; that, tense and driven to extremity, the situation will somehow resolve itself and give rise to something - something real rather than fictitious. After all, we couldn't remain like that for ever: I - upstairs and they - downstairs; someone had to give up, and it was only a question of who would give up first. It was quiet and gloomy. I stepped out into the hall, but heard no sounds from downstairs. What were they doing down there? Were they at least doing what they were obliged to do? Were they sufficiently scared, now that I exulted over that locked door? Were they huddling on what to do? Were they listening for the sound of my footsteps? Weren't they too lazy to work that out within themselves? "Ah," I sighed with relief when, about midnight, I finally heard someone walk through the hall and knock on the door.
"Come in," I called out.
"Pardon me," said Antoni, sitting in the chair I pointed him to. He looked unwell - his face was sallow and pale - and I could see that clarity of speech wouldn't be his forte.
"Your behavior... and recently - those words... in a word - what's the meaning of this!? Either leave... and at once!... or tell me! This is blackmail!" he burst out.
"So you're asking me at last," I said. "Too late, though! And you're asking me in a very general way, too. Actually, what am I supposed to say? Very well, then - here goes: your father..."
"What? What about him?"
"Your father was strangled."
"Strangled. Fine. Strangled," he snorted angrily with some strange satisfaction.
"Are you glad?"
"Yes, I am."
I waited awhile, and then said:
"Do you have any other questions?"
He burst out:
"But, after all, nobody heard any cries or noises!"
"First of all, only your mother and sister, who had locked their door for the night, were sleeping nearby. Second of all, the criminal could have immediately throttled the victim, who..."
"All right, all right" he whispered, "all right. Just a moment. One more thing: who do you think... who do you…?"
"Suspect - is that it? Who do I suspect? How do you think - in your opinion, could a stranger break at night into a locked house, guarded by a watchman and attentive dogs? I'm sure you'll say that the dogs and the watchman fell asleep, while the entrance door was left open through inattention? Am I right? An unfortunate coincidence?"
"Nobody could have entered," he replied with pride. He sat upright, and I could see that, motionless, he despised me, despised me wholeheartedly.
"Nobody," I chimed in eagerly, delighted at the sight of his pride, "absolutely nobody! Which leaves only the three of you and the three servants. But there was no way the servants could pass into the room because you...for some obscure reason... had locked the door to the servants' quarters. Are you going to tell me that you didn't?"
"No, I'm not!"
"But why did you lock that door - what was the reason?"
      He sprang out of his chair. "Stop playacting!" I said, and with this short remark put him back in place. Paralyzed, his anger degenerated into squeaky tones.
"I locked it - I don't know - mechanically," he said with difficulty and whispered twice, "strangled, strangled."
      He was nervous! All of them had a profound, nervous disposition.
"And since your mother and sister also... mechanically locked the door to their bedroom (and, at any rate, it would be difficult to suppose...am I right?), there is only... you know who's left. Only you were in a position to enter your father's room that night. The moon has already set, the dogs have fallen asleep, but someone is still calling out there, beyond the dense forest."[23]
      He burst out:
"So this is supposed to mean that... I... that I... ha, ha, ha!"
"And this laugh is supposed to mean that it wasn't you," I remarked and, after a few exertions, his laugh degenerated into a long-drawn false note.
"It wasn't you? But, in that case, young man," I went on quietly, "please tell me - why didn't you shed a single tear?"
"Shed a tear?"
"Yes. That's what your mother whispered to me, right in the beginning, as recently as yesterday, on the stairs. It's usual for mothers to embarrass their children and give away their secrets. And, a while ago, you laughed. You declared that you were glad of your father's death!" I said, using his words against him with such triumphant obtuseness that, losing his strength, he looked at me as though I was a mere instrument of torture.
      But sensing that the matter was becoming serious, he tried, straining all of his willpower, to stoop to an explanation in the form of avis au lecteur - a comment on the side - which he stammered out with difficulty.
"That was... irony... you understand... a reversal... on purpose."
"You presumed to speak ironically about you father's death?"
      He didn't say anything, so I whispered confidentially, almost into his ear:
"Why are you ashamed like that? After all, there's nothing shameful about your father's death."
      Remembering that moment, I'm glad I didn't get hurt, even though he didn't make the slightest move.
"Or maybe you're ashamed because you loved him? Maybe you really loved him?"
      He stammered out with difficulty - with loathing - with desperation:
"Very well. Since you insist... since ... all right, as you wish... I did love him."
      And tossing something onto the table, he exclaimed:
"Here! That's his hair!"
      Indeed, it was a wisp of hair.
"Good." I said. "Take it away."
"I don't want to! You can take it! I'm giving it to you!"
"Why this outburst? All right - you loved him - fine. I have only one more question (since, as you can see, I can't, for the life of me, make sense of those love affairs of yours). I admit that you've almost convinced me with that wisp of hair - but, you see, there is mainly one thing I don't understand."
      Here I sank my voice low once more and whispered into his ear:
"Granted, you loved him - but why is there so much shame in your love, so much contempt?"
      He turned pale and didn't say anything.
"Why so much cruelty and repulsion? Why are you disguising your love, just like a criminal disguising his crime? You refuse to answer? You don't know? Then maybe I'll tell you why.
      It's true that you loved your father, but when he became ill... you suggested to your mother that he might need some fresh air. Your mother, who also loved him, listened to you and nodded. That's right, that's right, fresh air won't do any harm - and so she moved into the adjoining room of her daughter, where she would be at the beck and call of her sick husband. Wasn't it so? Correct me if I'm wrong."
"Yes, that's how it was!"
"That's it! I'm an old fox, as you can see. One week goes by. On a certain evening, mother and sister lock the door to the bedroom. Why? God only knows! Do we need to contemplate every turn of a key in the lock? They turn once, twice, mechanically, and - hop - into their beds! Yes; and at the same time, you lock the door to the servants' quarters downstairs. Why? Is there an explanation for every such detail? Someone might as well demand that you explain why you're sitting instead of standing."
      He sprang to his feet, then sat down again and said:
"Yes, that's how it was! It was exactly the way you described it!"
"And then it occurred to you that your father might still need something. And maybe - you thought - your mother and sister had fallen asleep, while your father still needed something. And so, quietly - for why should you have disturbed anyone in their sleep? - you went up to father's room by the creaking stairs. Well; and when you finally entered the room - the rest needs no comment - you went all the way, mechanically."
      He listened, unable to believe his ears. Suddenly, he snapped himself awake, as it were, and moaned with a note of desperate candor, which can be inspired only by great fear:
"But I wasn't up there at all! I was staying in my room downstairs all the time! I locked not only the door to the servants' quarters, but also the door to my room - I also locked myself up in my room ... this is a mistake!"
      I exclaimed:
"What!? So you also locked yourself up!? - so finally it turns out that all of you locked yourselves up?... In that case, who was it?..."
"Don't know, don't know," he replied astonished, rubbing his forehead. "I think I'm beginning to understand that we were expecting something - perhaps we were waiting for something to happen - perhaps we had a premonition, and from fear, from shame," he suddenly burst out brutally, "we all locked ourselves up in our rooms... because we wanted Father - wanted Father - to put an end to it all by himself!"
"Oh, so sensing that his death was imminent, you locked yourselves up against that approaching death? Then you were waiting for that murder, after all?"
"Waiting?"
"Yes. But in that case, who murdered him? Obviously, he was murdered while all of you were waiting, and no stranger could have entered."
      He was silent.
"But I was really locked up in my room," he whispered, stooping under the weight of inexorable logic. "This is a mistake."
"But in that case, who murdered him, who murdered him?" I kept repeating laboriously.
      He grew pensive, as though he was making a horrible examination of his conscience; he was pale, motionless, and his eyes were withdrawn into his half-closed eyelids. Did he see anything down there, within his innermost depths? What did he see? Perhaps he saw himself getting out of bed and mounting cautiously the treacherous stairs, his hands ready to commit the act? Perhaps he doubted only for a moment that such a thing would be absolutely unthinkable? Maybe hatred appeared to him, in that single second, to complement love - who knew? (such was only my assumption) - maybe in that single twinkle of an eye he saw the gruesome duality of all feelings - saw that love and hatred were two faces of the same thing. This startling if fleeting revelation (such, at least, was my interpretation) must suddenly have devastated everything within him, and he found himself, together with his self-pity, unbearable. Although it lasted only for a moment, it sufficed. After all, for twelve hours he had been compelled to contend with my suspicion; for twelve hours he had been harassed by my nonsensical, relentless pursuit and he must have mulled the absurdity of it a thousand times - he hung his head like a broken man, then lifted it, peered at me up close with great bitterness, and said distinctly, right in my face:
"I did it. I went."
"What do you mean, you went?"
"I went, I say, all the way - like you said - all the way, mechanically!"
"What?! So it's true! So you plead guilty? It was you? You - really you?"
"Yes."
"That's it. And I bet the whole thing didn't take more than one minute."
"No - one minute at the most. I suppose it didn't take even that long. Then I returned to my room, went to bed and fell asleep - but before falling asleep, I yawned and thought, I vividly remember, that I would have to get up early the next morning!"
      I was astonished: he confessed everything so smoothly; even not so much smoothly - for he was hoarse - as ferociously, with utter delight. There was no doubt about it! Nobody could deny it! Yes, but the neck again: what to do with the neck, which stubbornly denied all allegations of violence in the bedroom upstairs? My mind was working at fever pitch - but what can one's mind do when faced with the mindlessness of a corpse?
      Crestfallen, I looked at the murderer, who seemed to be waiting. And it's difficult to explain, but at that moment I realized that the only thing left was a frank confession. There was no point in beating my head against the wall, i.e. against the neck, any longer - any further resistance or evasions would have been to no avail. As soon as I realized that, I felt an enormous trust in him. I realized that I had gone too far, had caused a little too much trouble - and, distressed, tired, exhausted after so many exertions, so many facial expressions, I was suddenly transformed into a small child, a helpless little boy, and felt the urge to confide my errors and pranks in my elder brother. It seemed to me that he would understand... and probably wouldn't refuse to give me advice... "Yes," I thought, "the only thing left is a frank confession... he will understand me, he will help me! He will find a solution!" But just in case, I rose and imperceptibly approached the door.
"You see," I said, my lips slightly quivering, "there's a certain hitch... a certain obstacle - a mere technicality - not very important, for that matter. The thing is that..." - my hand was already on the doorknob" - ...that, actually, the body bears no trace of strangulation. Technically speaking, he wasn't strangled at all, but died a normal death of a heart attack. The neck, you know, the neck…! The neck is intact!"
      Having said that, I dived through the half-open door and ran down the hall at full speed. I burst into the room, where the deceased lay, and hid in the wardrobe - and with a certain confidence, though also with fear, began to wait. Inside it was pitch-dark, uncomfortable, stuffy, and the trousers of the deceased were flapping my cheek. I waited a long time, already began to doubt, thought that nothing would happen and that they had made a complete fool of me, that they had hoodwinked me! All of a sudden, the door silently opened and someone slipped in gingerly - and then an awful noise reached me: the bed was madly creaking, and all formalities were being taken care of ex post in perfect silence! [24] Then the footsteps receded just as they had come. After a long hour, when I clambered out of the wardrobe trembling and soaked in sweat, confusion and havoc reigned amid the jumbled sheets: the body was flung athwart the crumpled pillow and the neck of the deceased revealed distinct imprints of all ten fingers. Forensic experts grimaced at those imprints, saying that something about them was not as it should have been. However, those imprints, together with an explicit admission of guilt by the criminal, were accepted as sufficient grounds at the trial.






 

NOTES
 

15. Nolens volens: (Latin) willy-nilly; whether willing or unwilling; in spite of oneself.
16. Crimen laessae maiestatis: In the old days, this Latin locution referred to an offense against the dignity of a monarch or other ruler (lese majesty). In the context of this story, however, it connotes presumptuous behavior and/or disrespect.
17. She didn't react with the slightest stir, standing on like a cypress: It should be remembered that the cypress serves as a symbol of mourning.
18. Niobe (Greek myths): Daughter of Tantalus and Dione. She taunted Leto (Latona) for having only two children (Niobe herself had ten sons and ten daughters), and the outraged mother appealed to the gods for revenge. As a result, Niobe's children were killed, and Niobe was turned into stone.
The Sword of Damocles (Greek myths): The symbol of an impending disaster. In an attempt to flatter a wealthy and powerful tyrant (Dionysus by name), Damocles called him a happy man, saying that he would gladly trade places with him. Dionysus therefore invited Damocles to a sumptuous banquet to show him what his happiness really was. At a certain point during the banquet, Damocles saw a naked sword suspended over his head by a single horse-hair - and his pleasant illusions about happiness were immediately shattered.
19. When I finally found myself alone in my room, I removed my collar: Along with bowlers, top hats, spats, chain watches, etc., removable collars were quite fashionable among men at the time this story was written (circa 1930). They were washed and starched apart from the shirt and discarded when they became worn, while the shirt could remain in use for years to come. Removable collars were stiff and usually made of linen.
20. And I began...form syllogisms, gather up the threads and seek circumstantial evidence: The term syllogism refers to a form of reasoning in which a conclusion is reached from two statements, as in "All men must die; I am a man; therefore, I must die." (Oxford American Dictionary, Heald Colleges Edition, 1986)
21. But appearances notwithstanding... how do you make a roast rabbit without a rabbit?: The Russian writer Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoevski (1821-1881) presented a similar conundrum in his political novel Besy (1871-1872), variously translated into English as "The Possessed," "The Devils" or "Demons."
22. But if you can't remove a hurdle, you have to jump over it - hic Rhodus, hic salta: (Latin) "Rhodus is here, here is where you jump!" In the fable The Braggart by Aesop [probably 620-560 BC], an athlete brags that he once performed an extraordinary jump in Rhodes, a fact which may be corroborated by witnesses. The punch line is provided by a bystander: there is no need of witnesses, for if the athlete really is what he claims to be, he may as well make the jump here and now.
23. The moon has set…beyond the dense forest: Quotation from Laura i Filon (1780) ["Laura and Filon"] by Franciszek Karpiński (1741- 1825), a minor Polish poet.
24. Suddenly...in perfect silence: I have preserved the discrepancy between "the bed was madly creaking" and "all formalities were being taken care of ex post in perfect silence." The Latin phrase ex post means "retroactively, after the fact."






© Translation and notes by Christopher Makosa