“I shall write that down, and all the rest concerning your wife's unfaithfulness can be left for the next time.… Now we will revert to another question. Will you explain to me how it came that you were in the forest where Olga Nikolaevna was murdered?… You were as you say, in the town.… How did you appear in the forest?”
“Yes, sir, I had been living in town with a cousin ever since I lost my place.… I passed my time in looking for a place and in drinking to forget my sorrows.… I had been drinking specially hard this last month. For example, I can't remember what happened last week as I was always drunk.… The day before yesterday I got drunk too.… In a word I am lost.… Irremediably lost!…”
“You wanted to tell me how it was that you appeared yesterday in the forest?”
“Yes, sir.… I awoke yesterday morning early, about four o'clock.… My head was aching from the previous day's drink, I had pains in all my limbs as if I had fever.… I lay on my bed and saw through the window the sun rise, and I remembered … many things.… A weight was on my heart.… Suddenly I wanted to see her … to see her once more, perhaps for the last time. I was seized by wrath and melancholy.… I drew from my pocket the hundred-rouble note the Count had sent me. I looked at it, and then trampled it underfoot.… I trampled on it till I decided to go and fling this charity into his face. However hungry and ragged I may be, I cannot sell my honour, and every attempt to buy it I consider a personal insult. So you see, sir, I wanted to have a look at Olga and fling the money into the ugly mug of that seducer. And this longing overpowered me to such an extent that I almost went out of my mind. I had no money to drive here; I could not spend his hundred roubles on myself. I started on foot. By good luck a muzhik I know overtook me, and drove me eighteen versts for ten kopecks, otherwise I might still have been trudging along. The muzhik set me down in Tenevo. From there I came here on foot and arrived about four o'clock.”
“Did anybody see you here at that time?”
“Yes, sir. The watchman, Nikolai, was sitting at the gate and told me the masters were not at home, they had all gone out shooting. I was almost worn out with fatigue, but the desire to see my wife was stronger than my pains. I had to go on foot without a moment's rest to the place where they were shooting. I did not go by the road, but started through the forest. I know every tree, and it would be as difficult for me to lose myself in the Count's forests as it would be in my own house.”
“But going through the forest and not by the road you might have missed the shooting party.”
“No, sir, I kept so close to the road all the time that I could not only hear the shots but the conversations too.”
“Consequently you did not expect to meet your wife in the forest?”
Urbenin looked at me with astonishment, and, after thinking for a short time, he replied: