Page:Chernyshevsky.whatistobedone.djvu/22

2 "There is nothing to be done; burst in the door, children."

They broke open the door. The room was empty.

"Look under the bed!"

But there was no one under the bed. The policeman went to the table; on the table lay a sheet of paper, and written in large letters were these words:—

"I shall go away at eleven o'clock this evening, and I shall not return. You will hear of me on the Liteinaïa bridge between two and three o'clock to-night. Let no one be suspected."

"Now I see, the matter is plain; nobody could make anything out of it," said the policeman.

"What do you mean, Ivan Afanasyévitch?" asked the butler.

"Give me some tea. I will tell you."

The policeman's narration long served as a subject for lively discussions and arguments in the hotel. The story was of this sort:—

At half-past three last night,—the night was cloudy, dark,—on the centre of the Liteinaïa bridge a fire flashed, and the report of a pistol was heard. The guards rushed to the spot, a few people quickly collected; not a person or a thing was to be seen where the pistol shot was fired. It was evidently not a murder, but a suicide. Volunteers wanted to dive; in a few moments boat-hooks were brought, a fishing-net was brought; they dived, they grappled, they dragged the river; they brought up about fifty large chips, but they could neither catch nor discover the body. Yes; and how could it be found? The night was dark. In those two hours the body was already far down towards the sea. Go, find it there. Therefore advanced thinkers arose, discrediting the former supposition:—

"May be there was no corpse whatsoever. May be some drunken man, or simply some mischievous fellow, played a joke, fired off a pistol, and ran; or perhaps the very fellow is standing here among the excited crowd, yes, and laughing at the trouble which he has made."

But the majority, as is usual when a case is argued reasonably, proved to be conservative, and defended the former supposition:—

"What kind of a joke is that? Of course he put a bullet into his brain, and that is the end of it!" The progressive