sked an officer
who was present.

"I wasn't the only one: the whole town knew of it," laughed Avdeyev.
"Besides, I haven't the time to hang about the law courts, damn
them!"

He had a nap after the pie and then had dinner, then had another
nap, then went to the evening service at the church of which he was
a warden; after the service he went back to the name-day party and
played preference till midnight. Everything seemed satisfactory.

But when Avdeyev hurried home after midnight the cook, who opened
the door to him, looked pale, and was trembling so violently that
she could not utter a word. His wife, Elizaveta Trofimovna, a flabby,
overfed woman, with her grey hair hanging loose, was sitting on the
sofa in the drawing-room quivering all over, and vacantly rolling
her eyes as though she were drunk. Her elder son, Vassily, a
high-school boy, pale too, and extremely agitated, was fussing round
her with a glass of water.

"What's the matter?" asked Avdeyev, and looked angrily sideways at
the stove (his family was constantly being upset by the fumes from
it).

"The examining magistrate has just been with the police," answered
Vassily; "they've made a search."

Avdeyev looked round him. The cupboards, the chests, the tables--
everything bore traces of the recent search. For a minute Avdeyev
stood motionless as though petrified, unable to understand; then
his whole inside quivered and seemed to grow heavy, his left leg
went numb, and, unable to endure his trembling, he lay down flat
on the sofa. He felt his inside heaving and his rebellious left leg
tapping against the back of the sofa.

In the course of two or three minutes he recalled the whole of his
past, but could not remember any crime deserving of the attention
of the police.

"It's all nonsense," he said, getting up. "They must have slandered
me. To-morrow I must lodge a complaint of their having dared to do
such a thing."

Next morning after a sleepless night Avdeyev, as usual, went to his
shop. His customers brought him the news that during the night the
public prosecutor had sent the deputy manager and the head-clerk
to prison as well. This news did not disturb Avdeyev. He was convinced
that he had been slandered, and that if he were to lodge a complaint
to-day the examining magistrate would get into trouble for the
search of the night before.

Between nine and ten o'clock he hurried to the town hall to see the
secretary, who was the only educated