the dough in a huge kneading-trough when suddenly the
trough sprang up. "Stop, stop! where are you going?" Putting its arms
akimbo, with dignity, it went skipping all about the cottage--you may
laugh, but it was no laughing matter to our grandfathers. And in vain
did Father Athanasii go through all the village with holy water,
and chase the Devil through all the streets with his brush. My late
grandfather's aunt long complained that, as soon as it was dark, some
one came knocking at her door and scratching at the wall.

Well! All appears to be quiet now in the place where our village stands;
but it was not so very long ago--my father was still alive--that
I remember how a good man could not pass the ruined tavern which
a dishonest race had long managed for their own interest. From the
smoke-blackened chimneys smoke poured out in a pillar, and rising high
in the air, rolled off like a cap, scattering burning coals over the
steppe; and Satan (the son of a dog should not be mentioned) sobbed so
pitifully in his lair that the startled ravens rose in flocks from the
neighbouring oak-wood and flew through the air with wild cries.

THE CLOAK

In the department of--but it is better not to mention the department.
There is nothing more irritable than departments, regiments, courts of
justice, and, in a word, every branch of public service. Each individual
attached to them nowadays thinks all society insulted in his person.
Quite recently a complaint was received from a justice of the peace, in
which he plainly demonstrated that all the imperial institutions were
going to the dogs, and that the Czar's sacred name was being taken in
vain; and in proof he appended to the complaint a romance in which the
justice of the peace is made to appear about once every ten lines,
and sometimes in a drunken condition. Therefore, in order to avoid all
unpleasantness, it will be better to describe the department in question
only as a certain department.

So, in a certain department there was a certain official--not a very
high one, it must be allowed--short of stature, somewhat pock-marked,
red-haired, and short-sighted, with a bald forehead, wrinkled cheeks,
and a complexion of the kind known as sanguine. The St. Petersburg
climate was responsible for this. As for his official status, he was
what is called a perpetual titular councillor, over which, as is well
known, some writers make merry, and crack their jokes, obeying the
praisewo