EXAMINING MAGISTRATE. Take a seat, please. [Points to a chair] Believe
me, I much regret to have to question you, but we are under the
necessity ... Please be calm, and remember that you need not answer my
questions. Only, in my opinion, for your own sake--and in fact for
everybody's sake--the truth is best. It is always best, even
practically.
LISA. I have nothing to conceal.
EXAMINING MAGISTRATE. Well then [looks at paper]--your name, position,
religion--all that I have put down. Is it correct?
LISA. Yes.
EXAMINING MAGISTRATE. You are accused of contracting a marriage with
another man, knowing your husband to be alive.
LISA. I did not know it.
EXAMINING MAGISTRATE. And also of having persuaded your husband, and
bribed him with money, to commit a fraud--a pretended suicide--in order
to free yourself of him.
LISA. That is all untrue.
EXAMINING MAGISTRATE. Well then, allow me to put a few questions. Did
you send him 1,200 roubles in July of last year?
LISA. It was his own money, the proceeds of the sale of some things of
his. At the time I parted from him, and when I was expecting a divorce,
I sent him the money.
EXAMINING MAGISTRATE. Just so! Very well. That money was sent to him on
the 17th of July, two days before his disappearance?
LISA. I think it was on the 17th, but I don't remember.
EXAMINING MAGISTRATE. And why was the application to the Consistorium
for a divorce withdrawn, just at that time--and the lawyer told not to
proceed with the case?
LISA. I don't know.
EXAMINING MAGISTRATE. Well, and when the police asked you to identify
the body, how was it you recognised it as your husband's?
LISA. I was so excited that I did not look at the body, and I felt so
sure it was he, that when they asked me I answered, "I think it is he."
EXAMINING MAGISTRATE. Yes, you did not see well, in consequence of a
very natural excitement. And now may I ask why you have sent a monthly
remittance to Sarátov, the very town where your first husband was
living?
LISA. My husband sent that money, and I cannot say what it was for, as
that is not my secret. But it was not sent to Theodore Vasílyevich, for
we were firmly convinced of his death. That I can say for certain.[26]
[26] Had Tolstoy lived to give a final revision to this play, he would
probably have made it clearer that Karénin sent a monthly payment to
the clockmaker Evgényev, in response to the request contained in the
last letter Fédya addressed to Lisa and himself; and that this money
found its way to Fédya.
EXAMINING MAGISTRATE. Very well. Only allow me to remark, madam, that
the fact of our being servants of the law does not prevent our being
men; and believe me I quite understand your position and sympathise with
you! You were tied to a man who squandered your property, was
unfaithful--in short, brought misfortune....
LISA. I loved him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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