A Night in the Cemetery

CRIMINAL INVESTIGATOR

The county doctor and the criminal investigator were riding to perform an autopsy one wonderful spring day.

The investigator was a man in his mid-forties. He thoughtfully looked up and said to his companion, “There are many mysterious, dark forces in the world. But even in our everyday life, dear doctor, you can stumble on events that cannot be explained. For example, I have come across several very mysterious and strange deaths, which can only be explained by mysticism or spiritualism, things that a person with a logical mind would only shake his head at in disbelief. To give you an example, I once knew a very intelligent woman who managed to foretell her death, without any visible reason. She told many others that she would die on a particular day, and she died on that very day.”

“There is no action without a reason. If there was a death, then there was a reason for it,” the doctor replied. “And if we are to talk about predictions in general, that is not very strange. People often talk about this, especially women in the local villages. A lot of them think they have some sort of gift, like premonition.”

“This is true, dear doctor, but the lady I am talking about was a very special woman. In her prediction and in her death there was no psychic, magic, or any of those kinds of influences. She was very young and healthy, intelligent, and without any prejudice. She had clever, clear, and honest eyes, with a very light, completely Russian kind of smile on her lips. She possessed a true feminine beauty.

“She was kind and gracious, with fine eyes and gorgeous, lovely hair! To complete her portrait, I should add that she was a very optimistic woman, filled with a zest for life, infected with happiness and joy, so to speak. She had a contagious laugh, and was filled with that light carelessness that only very smart, simple, and joyful people possess. How can we speak about mysticism, spiritualism, psychics, or magic in this case, when in life she laughed at these very things?”

The doctor’s horses stopped near the well. Both the investigator and the doctor got down and drank some water while waiting for the driver to finish watering the horses.

“So, what was the cause of her death?” the doctor inquired, as they continued on their way.

“She died in a very peculiar way. One day, her husband came to her and said that it would be nice to replace their cart and their old horses with stronger, younger ones, especially Out-Runner, their old horse, and Dobchinsky. The husband did not like this horse and so gave her a funny name. He wanted to get rid of the horse by giving it to the horse knacker [to convert to dog food and glue].

The wife listened to him and said,

“Do whatever you want. By the end of this summer, I’ll be in the cemetery.”

The husband shook his head and smiled.

“I am not joking in the slightest,” she continued. “I assure you, I will die soon.”

“How soon?” her husband asked her.

“Right after I will deliver the baby, I shall take one last look at the child, and then die.”

Now the husband did not pay any attention to her words. He did not believe in premonitions and future-telling. We all know that when women are expecting, they can often be prone to depressing thoughts.

But the next day, his wife told him the same thing: that she would die on the day of her delivery, and she continued to say the same thing with each day that followed. He just laughed and called her a worried old woman.

However, his wife had developed a fixed idea about her upcoming death. The husband discovered when he went to the kitchen and spoke with the cook and nanny that his wife had repeated her belief to the staff, saying:

“I will not live long, for I will die soon, my dear nanny. As soon as I deliver, I will die, for this is my fate.”

Both the nanny and the cook would cry when she spoke like this. Word of her situation spread across the area. Local ladies would come and try to speak to her about her future plans, but she only spoke of her upcoming death. She spoke very seriously, without hesitation or objection, with a sad, ill-looking smile on her face, and often with an angry expression. She had formerly been a very fashionable lady, but in the wake of her premonition she did not take any visible care with her appearance, which was now constantly untidy. She stopped laughing or dreaming aloud.

Even more, one day she went with her aunt to the cemetery and purchased the plot of her future grave. Five days before the baby was due, she wrote out her will.

Please keep in mind that she was in perfect health, without any hint of illness. Giving birth is a difficult thing, and there can be medical problems, but the woman I am telling you about was completely happy and healthy, and there seemed nothing to worry about.

The husband was tired of the whole situation. One day, during dinner, he grew angry and asked her loudly, “Listen, Natasha, when are you going to stop this foolishness?”

“I am not being foolish. I am telling the truth,” was her reply.

“Nonsense! Stop talking about these foolish things, otherwise later you will be embarrassed.”

The day of the delivery finally came. The husband brought the best midwife in from the city. This was her first child, and everything went smoothly, without a problem. When the labor was over, the wife wanted to take a look at her newborn son. She glanced at him and said,

“Now, I can die.”

She then said good-bye to everyone, closed her eyes, and half an hour later was dead.

Up until the last moment she was in good health, could see and hear everything, and she was in control of herself. When they brought her some milk during the delivery instead of water, she quietly whispered,

“Why do you bring me milk? I asked for water.”

This is the end of the story. She predicted it in detail, and died exactly as she had predicted.

The investigator grew silent for a little while, then waved his hand in the air and asked,

“I can’t figure it out. So, tell me, how do you think she died? I give you my word that this is not a fictional story, but it is completely based on real facts.”

Absorbing all he had heard, the doctor raised his eyes to the sky as he said,

“They should have done an autopsy.”

“Why?”

“In order to determine the real reason of her death. She did not die because of her premonitions. Most likely she poisoned herself.”

The investigator turned toward the doctor, squinted his eyes suspiciously, and asked,

“Why do you come to the conclusion that she poisoned herself?”

“It was not a conclusion, but an educated guess. Was she happy with her husband?”

“Well, not exactly. They had some misunderstanding right after they got married. There were some unpleasant circumstances. One day, the newlywed wife saw her husband with another woman, in a compromising position. However, shortly after, she forgave him.”

“And what happened first, her husband’s affair, or the first time she spoke about her future death?”

The investigator carefully looked at the doctor, as if trying to guess the reason for this question.

“Wait a minute, wait! Let me remember.” The investigator took off his hat and wiped his forehead. “Yes, she started talking about her death right after this event. Yes!”

“So you see. Now, most likely it was then that she decided to poison herself, but because she did not want to kill the child she carried as well, she decided to postpone her suicide until after her delivery.”

“You could hardly be right. That would be impossible. She forgave her husband right after the event.”

“If she forgave so fast, it means that she intended on revenge. Young wives do not forgive very easily or so fast.”

The investigator forced a smile to cover his very obvious excitement, halting all conversation while he smoked a cigarette.

“It can’t be. I do not think so. This possibility never occurred to me. He did not cheat on her, and he did not plan to do that. One day he came home from work, a little bit drunk. He wanted to give a little love to someone, and then all of a sudden he met the lady who had been visiting them for a weekend, a stupid, completely silly and unattractive woman. You cannot even call it cheating. The wife looked at it the same way, and shortly after this incident, she forgave her husband. After that, there was no mention of the event at all.”

“People do not die for no reason,” the doctor responded.

“This is true, but I cannot believe she poisoned herself. It is so strange, no one even thought about it! Everyone was surprised that her prediction came true, but there was not even the slightest thought of this possibility. This cannot be possible, that she had poisoned herself, no!”

The investigator was lost in thought and was silent for a while.

The thought of this woman, who accurately predicted her own death, did not leave him while the doctor performed the autopsy. He was writing down what the doctor was dictating to him, frowning gloomily and rubbing his forehead.

“Are there any poisons that could kill a person in a quarter of an hour, quite easily and without any pain?” he inquired of the doctor when they were examining the skull.

“Yes, morphine, for example.”

“Well, that is strange. I remember that she had something like that on hand, but it’s hardly likely, hardly.”

On the way back, the investigator looked very tired. He nervously bit his moustache, and stroked it without any enthusiasm.

“Let us take a little walk, doctor. I am tired of sitting in the cart.”

After taking about a hundred steps, the police investigator looked completely drained, as if he had just finished climbing a steep mountain. He stopped, looked at the doctor with dull eyes, and said,

“Oh my God! If your suggestion is true, what she did was cruel and inhuman. She poisoned herself to torture another person! It was not such a great sin that her husband committed! Why did you give me that terrible suggestion? My dear doctor, you should not have suggested such a thing to me!”

The investigator held his head with both hands in despair and continued,

“I was telling you the story of my wife and myself. Oh my God! Yes, I am to blame, I hurt her. But is it easier to die than to forgive? She reasoned like a typical woman, in a very cruel and merciless way. Oh yes, she was very cruel when she was alive, now I remember everything. Now everything is clear to me!”

The investigator could not stop talking. At some points he waved his hands in the air, and held his head in his hands. He was either jumping from the cab or walking next to it. The new revelation by the doctor had completely stunned, overwhelmed, and poisoned his existence. He was completely at a loss, weakened in both body and soul, and when their journey ended, he did not say good-bye to the doctor, and, despite his earlier promise, declined the doctor’s invitation to have lunch together.