EXAMINATION OF PIERRE ALEXIECIVITCH TSARYNA, SON OF A CITIZEN OF KOSTROMA.
He is thirty-two years of age; entered the military service in 1828 as a recruit in the lancers of Archanguelk. He denies any participation in the crime.
Q. “Yet you were the first to tell the quarter-master Hortinja that a great intimacy existed between the Cornet Semenov and the girl Nadiejda.”
R. “I was joking when I said Semenov and Nadiejda were too intimate. The quarter-master was wicked as the devil; he pounded our very bones with the baton. I revenged myself by contradicting his ridiculous passion for a girl young enough to be his grand-daughter.”
Q. “Why did you rejoin Hortinja at Kostroma?”
R. “I met him there by chance.”
Q. “And why did you choose to return at the time that Semenov was going to Rybinsk?”
R. “In order to save my money.”
Q. “Why did you give to the servant of Semenov, and to the first sailor, a poison, which produced cholic and vomiting?”
R. “They were very fond of brandy—they were like a cask without bottom; to play them a trick I put snuff into the liquor: is it my fault they have such delicate stomachs?”
Q. “Why did you provoke Hortinja to assassinate the cornet?”
R. “I did not. The quarter-master is subject to visions, he dreams so many other things, that he may have dreamed that also.”
Q. “Why, then, did you not defend him?”
R. “The cornet was in citizen’s dress, the quarter-master in uniform, and I am a soldier.”
Q. “What do you mean by that?”
R. “That the soldier must respect the uniform more than the citizen’s dress.”
Q. “Why did you throw the cornet into the water?”
R. “To save him from the fury of the quarter-master. I also saw a boat coming towards us.”
Q. “Why did you apprize Hortinja of its coming?”
R. “From joy that I could save the cornet.”
Q. “And why did you not denounce the crime of Hortinja when you arrived at Rybinsk?”
R. “Because I am a soldier, and he is a quarter-master.”
All my questions, all my expedients, the bastinado included, drew no other confession from him. Confronted with Hortinja, he replied to his indignation by sneers; in the presence of soldiers who had heard his provocations he denied them: only at the sight of Nadiejda did he turn pale, grind his teeth, and reply nothing, absolutely nothing!