The district doctor, who looked a worn-out and sickly man, was sitting pensively near the bed in an arm-chair and seemed to be feeling her pulse. Father Jeremiah, who had just finished his work, was wrapping up the cross in his stole and preparing to depart.
“Pëtr Egorych, do not grieve!” he said with a sigh and looked towards the corner of the room. “Everything is God's will. Turn for protection to God.”
Urbenin was seated on a stool in a corner of the room. He was so much changed that I hardly recognized him. Want of work and drink during the last month had told as much on his clothes as on his appearance; his clothes were worn out, his face too.
The poor fellow sat there motionless, supporting his head on his fists and never taking his eyes off the bed.… His hands and face were still stained with blood.… He had forgotten to wash them.…
Oh, the prediction of my soul and of my poor bird!
Whenever the noble bird which I had killed screamed out his phrase about the husband who killed his wife, Urbenin's figure always arose before my mind's eye. Why?… I knew that jealous husbands often kill their unfaithful wives; at the same time I knew that such men as Urbenin do not kill people.… And I drove away the thought of the possibility of Olga being killed by her husband as something absurd.
“Was it he or not he?” I asked myself as I looked at his unhappy face.
And to speak candidly I did not give myself an affirmative answer, despite the Count's story and the blood I saw on his hands and face.
“If he had killed her he would have washed off that blood long ago,” I said to myself, remembering the following proposition of a magistrate of my acquaintance: “A murderer cannot bear the blood of his victim.”
If I had wished to tax my memory I could have remembered many aphorisms of a similar nature, but I must not anticipate or fill my mind with premature conclusions.