The Mission of Poubalov

by Frederick R. Burton

The noise of the door closing aroused him. Litizki had left the room.

On the street Litizki again had to struggle against the fear that his crime excited. All through the long night it came to him at irregular intervals, and he vibrated between an exaltation when he regarded himself as a hero, and abject cowardice when the rustling of a leaf made his very soul shiver. On this occasion, that is, after leaving Vargovitch, he staggered through unfamiliar streets and alleys, hoping that no friend would see him, and at length during a period of self-possession, he crossed the ferry to East Boston. There he took a room in an emigrant's hotel near the Cunard steamship dock. He knew that some boat of this line would depart on the morrow, the regular sailing day, and he had resolved to take passage in it.

In the office of the hotel he found that the boat was the Cephalonia, and that she was scheduled to start at half-past eleven. That was a late hour, and he would be in great peril until then, but there was nothing for it but to take his chances. So he gathered up a lot of writing materials and retired to his room. He spent most of the night in writing to Clara.

"In staying your hand," he began abruptly, without address of any sort, "from exacting from Alexander Poubalov the penalty of his crime against you, the penalty which your hand alone was worthy to exact, I was impelled not by egotism, or sudden emotion. It was my purpose to save you for a happier career than with all your nobility of character you could have achieved had you yourself done the deed. I shall try to escape the punishment that society would inflict upon me for this act of justice, for I find that at this moment I cling to my miserable life as does the dog whose master starves and maltreats him. If I do not escape, it will matter not at all, and I ask no tears from your beautiful eyes. I know your character so well that I shall die content with the gratitude that I know will warm your heart for your unworthy servant.

"The blow that struck away the mighty obstacle to your success and happiness was but the key to the door that is closed upon Ivan Strobel. The happiness of opening that door with my own hands is not to be for me, and I do not deserve it. I am content to show you the way.

"Poubalov's rooms are at 32 Bulfinch Place. He occupies two, possibly three rooms there, and in the sense that he has undoubtedly bought the landlady, the whole house is his. I am convinced that Strobel is confined there, and that that has been his prison house since his abduction last Monday. There will be no bar now to your going to the house and releasing your lover and my benefactor. I will tell you what room he is in, or at all events was in last Thursday night; and that you may thoroughly understand me, I will relate how I came to know this, although in so doing I shall lay bare to you the secrets of my heart and confess to you the weak, good-for-nothing that I am—such as you yourself have found me to be. I hope my action of this evening will redeem me somewhat in your eyes."

Here followed a detailed account of Litizki's attempted rescue of Strobel, and he mitigated none of the mortifying occurrences, freely confessing himself a child in the hands of his adversary.

"The room where Strobel was confined on that night," he continued, "is the little one adjoining Poubalov's main room. It is directly over the hall as you enter, one flight up. I doubt very much whether Poubalov has transferred his prisoner to any other part of the house, for that would have provoked comment and perhaps suspicion among the lodgers. Your happiness, therefore, is now in your own hands, and if I escape I shall never see you again. I could almost wish that I would be taken, for the certainty that you would come to visit me in my cell; but it is my desire to relieve you of everything that might even remind you of sorrow, and I therefore take leave of you in this letter with the hope that you will act upon it without delay, and that no accident will rob you of the reward which your loyalty merits."

He signed his name without any formal concluding phrases, and having addressed, stamped and sealed the envelope, he went out to post it. The dawn was just breaking, and he could see with sufficient clearness all about the street and the freight yard in the vicinity of the hotel. No one, apparently, was stirring save himself. Believing that Clara would get the letter sooner if he took it to a post office instead of a street box, he attempted to find one. He knew there must be a branch office in East Boston somewhere, but he knew not where to look for it. He had come to the corner of Maverick Square when he saw a policeman standing within the shadow of a building. A violent shudder came over him as he suddenly realized that he had taken one step toward the officer with a view to asking the way to the post office! One of his fits of fear attacked him and again he staggered, but if the policeman had any thought of arresting him for drunkenness, he gave no indication of it, and Litizki stumbled on undisturbed.