s this you or not you!"

"Oh, shut up! You want to preach me a sermon? Don't trouble yourself!
Young Dukovski, empty your glass! Friends, let us bring this--What are
you looking at? Drink!"

"All the same, I do not understand!" said the examining magistrate,
mechanically drinking off the vodka. "What are you here for?"

"Why shouldn't I be here, if I am all right here?"

Klausoff drained his glass and took a bite of ham.

"I am in captivity here, as you see. In solitude, in a cavern, like a
ghost or a bogey. Drink! She carried me off and locked me up,
and--well, I am living here, in the deserted bath house, like a
hermit. I am fed. Next week I think I'll try to get out. I'm tired of
it here!"

"Incomprehensible!" said Dukovski.

"What is incomprehensible about it?"

"Incomprehensible! For Heaven's sake, how did your boot get into the
garden?"

"What boot?"

"We found one boot in the sleeping room and the other in the garden."

"And what do you want to know that for? It's none of your business!
Why don't you drink, devil take you? If you wakened me, then drink
with me! It is an interesting tale, brother, that of the boot! I
didn't want to go with Olga. I don't like to be bossed. She came under
the window and began to abuse me. She always was a termagant. You know
what women are like, all of them. I was a bit drunk, so I took a boot
and heaved it at her. Ha-ha-ha! Teach her not to scold another time!
But it didn't! Not a bit of it! She climbed in at the window, lit the
lamp, and began to hammer poor tipsy me. She thrashed me, dragged me
over here, and locked me in. She feeds me now--on love, vodka, and
ham! But where are you off to, Chubikoff? Where are you going?"

The examining magistrate swore, and left the bath house. Dukovski
followed him, crestfallen. They silently took their seats in the
carriage and drove off. The road never seemed to them so long and
disagreeable as it did that time. Both remained silent. Chubikoff
trembled with rage all the way. Dukovski hid his nose in the collar of
his overcoat, as if he was afraid that the darkness and the drizzling
rain might read the shame in his face.

When they reached home, the examining magistrate found Dr. Tyutyeff
awaiting him. The doctor was sitting at the table, and, sighing
deeply, was turning over the pages of the _Neva_.

"Such goings-on there are in the world!" he said, meeting the
examining magistrate with a sad smile, "Austria is at it again!