Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories

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 from the police and had money and precious things! Luigi

was a dreadful individual (ein schrockliches Subject), to kill

a fellow-man (einen Mitmenschen) meant nothing at all to him!

He spoke every language--and it was he who that time got our

things back from the cook! Don't ask how! He was capable of anything,

he was an awful man! He assured the old woman that he would only drug

you a little and then take you out of town and put you down somewhere

and would say that he knew nothing about it but that it was your

fault--that you had taken too much wine somewhere! But even then the

wretch had it in his mind that it would be better to kill you so that

there would be no one to tell the tale! He wrote you that letter,

signed with my name and the old woman got me away by craft! I

suspected nothing and I was awfully afraid of Luigi! He used to say to

me, 'I'll cut your throat, I'll cut your throat like a chicken's!' And

he used to twitch his moustache so horribly as he said it! And they

dragged me into a bad company, too.... I am very much ashamed, Mr.

Lieutenant! And even now I shed bitter tears at these memories! ... It

seems to me ... ah! I was not born for such doings.... But there is no

help for it; and this is how it all happened! Afterwards I was

horribly frightened and could not help going away, for if the police

had found us, what would have happened to us then? That accursed Luigi

fled at once as soon as he heard that you were alive. But I soon

parted from them all and though now I am often without a crust of

bread, my heart is at peace! You will ask me perhaps why I came to

Nikolaev? But I can give you no answer! I have sworn! I will finish by

asking of you a favour, a very, very important one: whenever you

remember your little friend Emilie, do not think of her as a

black-hearted criminal! The eternal God sees my heart. I have a bad

morality (Ich habe eine schlechte moralitat) and I am

feather-headed, but I am not a criminal. And I shall always love and

remember you, my incomparable Florestan, and shall always wish you

everything good on this earthly globe (auf diesem Erdenrund!).

I don't know whether my letter will reach you, but if it does, write me

a few lines that I may see you have received it. Thereby you will make

very happy your ever-devoted Emilie.

'P. S. Write to F. E. poste restante, Breslau, Silesia.

'P. S. S. I have written to you in German; I could not express my

feelings otherwise; but you write to me in Russian.'

XXVIII

'Well, did you answer her?' we asked Kuzma Vassilyevitch.

'I meant to, I meant to many times. But how was I to write? I don't

know German ... and in Russian, who would have translated it? And so I

did not write.'

And always as he finished his story, Kuzma Vassilyevitch sighed, shook

his head and said, 'that's what it is to be young!' And if among his