“Cute!” Kamyshev said, rubbing his hands; “go on, go on!”
“Is it possible that what has already been said is not enough for you? To prove conclusively that Olga was murdered by you, and no other, I must remind you that you were her lover, whom she had jilted for a man you despised! A husband can kill from jealousy. I presume a lover can do so, too.… Now let us advert to Kuz'ma.… To judge by his last interrogation, that took place on the eve of his death, he had you in his mind; you had wiped your hands on his poddevka, and you had called him a swine.… If it had not been you, why did you interrupt your examination at the most interesting point? Why did you not ask about the colour of the murderer's necktie, when Kuz'ma had informed you he had remembered what the colour of the necktie was? Why did you give Urbenin liberty just when Kuz'ma remembered the name of the murderer? Why not before or after? It was evident you required a man who might walk about the corridors at night.… And so you killed Kuz'ma, fearing that he would denounce you.”
“Well, enough!” Kamyshev said laughing. “That will do! You are in such a passion, and have grown so pale that it seems as if at any moment you might faint. Do not continue. You are right. I really did kill them.”
This was followed by a silence. I paced the room from corner to corner. Kamyshev did the same.
“I killed them!” Kamyshev continued. “You have caught the secret by the tail,—it's your good luck. Not many will have that success. Most of your readers will abuse Urbenin, and be amazed at my magisterial cleverness and acumen.”
At that moment my assistant came into my office and interrupted our conversation. Noticing that I was occupied and excited he hovered for a moment around my writing-table, looked at Kamyshev, and left the room. When he had gone Kamyshev went to the window and began to breathe on the glass.
“Eight years have passed since then,” he began again, after a short silence, “and for eight years I have borne this secret within me. But such a secret and live blood are incompatible in the same organism; it is impossible to know without punishment what the rest of mankind does not know. For all these eight years I have felt myself a martyr. It was not my conscience that tormented me, no! Conscience is a thing apart … and I don't pay much attention to it. It can easily be stifled by reasoning about its expansibility. When reason does not work, I smother it with wine and women. With women I have my former success,—this I only mention by the way. But I was tormented by something else. The whole time I thought it strange that people should look upon me as an ordinary man. During all these eight years not a single living soul has looked at me searchingly; it appeared strange to me that I had not to hide. A terrible secret is concealed in me, and still I walk about the streets. I go to dinner-parties. I flirt with women! For a criminal man such a position is unnatural and painful. I would not be tormented if I had to hide and dissemble. Psychosis, baten'ka! At last I was seized by a kind of passion.… I suddenly wanted to pour myself out in some way on everybody, to shout my secret at them all, though nobody is worth a sneeze … to do something like that … something extraordinary. And so I wrote this novel—indictment, in which only the witless will have any difficulty in recognizing me as a man with a secret.… There is not a page that does not give the key to the puzzle. Is that not true? You doubtless understood it at once. When I wrote it I took into consideration the standard of the average reader.…”
We were again disturbed. Andrey entered the room bringing two glasses of tea on a tray.… I hastened to send him away.
“Now it appears to be easier for me,” Kamyshev said smiling, “now you look upon me not as an ordinary man, but as a man with a secret,—and I feel myself in a natural position.… But.… However, it is already three o'clock, and somebody is waiting for me in the cab …”
“Stay, put down your hat.… You have told me what made you take up authorship, now tell me how you murdered.”