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I was furious, but for the time being held myself in check.To quarrel with the police would be the last straw. “You don’t wish to intervene in the case concerning the murder of Svetilovich?” “God forbid, God forbid!” he interrupted. “It’s that we simply doubt whether we can unravel this case, and we cannot compel our investigator to do everything in his power to solve the case of a man whose ideas were directed in quite an opposite direction to those of all honest, loyal sons of our country.” And with a charming smile he waved his hand in the air. “Alright. If the Imperial Russian Court does not wish to force the investigator to establish the truth in the case of the murder of Svetilovich, an aristocrat, then perhaps it will wish to force the investigator to unravel the case con cerning the attempt to deprive Nadzeya Yanowskaya, the owner of Marsh Firs, of her sanity and her life?” Comprehensively he looked at me, turned pink at some pleasant thought, and smacked his lips several times, lips fat and moist, and asked: “But why are you taking such pains for her sake? You’ve decided, most certainly to make use of her yourself, haven’t you? And why not? I approve of that: in bed she is, most probably, not bad.” The blood rushed to my face. The insult to my unfortunate friend, the insult to a beloved one, whom even in my thoughts I could not call mine, became united into one. I don’t remember how a whip came to be in my hand. I choked with fury. “You... you... skunk!” And with all my might I dealt him a blow on his dark-pink face. I thought he would take out his revolver and kill me. But this strong fellow only groaned. Once again I struck him across his face and threw the whip away in disgust. Like a bullet he flew out of the room into the yard in great haste and only about half a kilometre away did he cry: “Help!” When Rygor learned about everything, he didn’t approve of what I had done. He said that I had spoiled everything, that I’d most certainly be called out to the district on the following day, and would be imprisoned for a week or banished from the region. But I had to be here, for the darkest nights had set in. I had however, no regrets. I had put all my hatred into that blow. And even if the district officials didn’t lift a finger to help me, still, now I knew well who was my friend and who my enemy. Other events of this and the following day vaguely imprinted themselves on my memory: good old Dubatowk, bitter tears choking him as he cried over the dead youth, and still hardly able to move after the “treat” I had given him; Miss Nadzeya standing at the coffin, wrapped in a black mantilla, so beautiful, so pure in her mourning. As if in a dream I afterwards recalled the funeral procession. I was leading Yanowskaya, holding her by the arm, and against the background of the grey autumn sky people walking with heads bared, the twisted birches throwing their dead, yellow leaves at the feet of the people. The face of the murdered man floating overhead. Peasant women, muzhiks, children, old men following behind the coffin, and a quiet sobbing sounding in the air. In front of us Rygor carrying on his back a large cross made of oak. And louder and louder still, soaring upward over the entire mourning procession, over the wet earth, the bewailing voices of the women. “But to whom then have you left us? And why have you fallen asleep, our own, our dear one? And why are your clear eyes closed, your white hands folded? And who then shall defend us against the unjust judges? While the aristocrats all around are merciless, no cross on them! Our beloved one, where then have you flown to, away from us, for whom have you deserted us, your poor little children? As if there were no brides for you all around, that you had to go and marry the earth, you our darling? And what kind of a hut have you chosen for yourself? No windows in it, no doors, and not the free sky over the roof — only the damp earth!!! And not a wife at your side — a cold board! Neither girl friends there nor a beloved one! Then who will kiss you on the lips, and who will comb your little head?! And why have the little lights grown dim? And why are the conifers reproving? It’s not your wife crying, your beloved! After all it’s not she who is weeping, wasting herself away. It’s people, good people, weeping over you! It’s not a little star that’s lit up in the sky! It’s the tiny wax candle in your little hands that’s begun to glow!” The coffin was accompanied by such sincere lamentations and weeping from the people of the neighbourhood, by moaning and groaning that cannot be bought from professional wailers. And here was the deep grave. When the time came to leave, Yanowskaya fell on her knees and kissed the hand of the man who had perished for her sake. It was with difficulty that I tore her away from the coffin when the people began lowering it into the grave. About three dozen peasants dragged over an enormous grey stone on runners and began to pull it up the hill where the lonely grave had been dug. A cross was carved on the stone and also the name and surname — in crooked, clumsy letters. Lumps of earth began to thunder against the cover of the coffin, hiding the dear face from me. Then the enormous grey stone was placed near the grave. Rygor and five peasants took old guns and began to shoot into the indifferent sky. The last of the Svetilovich-Yanowskys had floated off into the unknown. “Soon the same will happen with me, too,” Yanowskaya whispered to me. “The sooner the better.” The shots thundered. Like stone were the faces of the people. Then, in accordance with an ancient custom among the gentry, the family coat of arms was smashed against the tombstone. The family remained without a future. It had become extinct. CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH I felt that I would go mad if I did not occupy myself in searching for and finding the guilty ones, and didn’t punish them. If there is no God, if there is no justice to be found among the authorities, I myself will be both God and Judge. And by God, hell itself will tremble, if they fall into my hands: I shall pull out the sinews of the living. Rygor said that his friends were searching in the Reserve, that he himself had examined the place of the murder and found there a cigarette butt. He had also found it was a tall, slender man who had smoked the cigarette under the pines while awaiting Svetilovich. Besides that, he had found a paper wad from the murderer’s gun, and also the bullet that had killed my friend. When I unfolded the wad, I became convinced that the scrap of paper, too thick to be from a newspaper, was most likely a piece of a page from a journal. I read: “Each one of them is guilty of some offence when they are led to be executed. Forgive me, Your Highness, you’ve forgotten the crucifixion... Forgive me, God has deprived me of my reason...” These words reminded me of something very familiar. Where could I have met something similar? And soon I recalled that I had read just these words in the journal “North-West Antiquity”! When I asked Yanowskaya who subscribed there for it, she answered in an indifferent tone, that besides themselves — nobody. And here a blow awaited me: in the library I found out that in one of the numbers of the journal a few pages were missing, and specifically those that I needed. I grew cold — things had taken a very serious turn: the instigator of the Wild Hunt was here in the castle. But who then was it? Not I nor Yanowskaya, nor the foolish housekeeper, who every day now on seeing the mistress began to cry and moreover, it was apparent that she regretted her misdeeds. And this meant that only Berman-Gatzevich was left. This was logical: he was a runaway criminal, and was well-informed of all events. It was possible that it was he who had shot at me, who had torn out a page from the journal and had killed Svetilovich. I couldn’t understand one thing only: why had he tried to convince me that the greatest danger was the Wild Hunt and not the Little Man? And also the fact that he, Berman, could not have killed Roman since it was not he who had invited Nadzeya to the Kulsha’s, and during the murder he was at home. However, hadn’t Svetilovich that last day said that it was a man beyond suspicion? And how frightened he became, this Berman, when I came into his room! And then couldn’t he have been simply the one who inspired this abomination? But really, how then in that case explain the existence of the Lady-in-Blue? And this is the most inexplicable fact in the entire affair. And most important of all it was impossible to understand what Berman had to gain. But such a fiend might think up anything at all. I got from Yanowskaya her father’s personal archive and carefully examined the material of his last days. Nothing comforting besides notes that he no longer liked Berman: he often disappeared from the house somewhere, was too much interested in the Yanowsky genealogy, in old plans of the castle. But this, too, was a significant fact. Why not suppose that he, Berman, was responsible also for the appearance of the Little Man, more exactly. speaking, for his steps? After all, perhaps he had been able to dig up old plans, to make use of some acoustic secret of the castle and frighten people every night with the sound of steps. I told Rygor about my findings and stated my views on the subject, and he said that it was quite possible that it was so, he even promised to help, since his uncle and grandfather had been stone-masons at the Yanowsky’s before serfdom had been repealed. “Somebody is hiding here somewhere, the scoundrel, but who he is, where the passages are, how he gets into those places, we don’t know,” Rygor sighed. “No matter, we’ll find out. But take care. I’ve met in my lifetime only two worthy men among the living. It will be a pity if something should happen to you, too. Then all these rotten people will have no right to eat bread and breathe the air.”