summons, and he returned
home after the interview, insulted and red in the face.

"He gave me no peace, pestering me to tell him why I had signed. I
signed, that's all about it. I didn't do it on purpose. They brought
the papers to the shop and I signed them. I am no great hand at
reading writing."

Young men with unconcerned faces arrived, sealed up the shop, and
made an inventory of all the furniture of the house. Suspecting
some intrigue behind this, and, as before, unconscious of any
wrongdoing, Avdeyev in his mortification ran from one Government
office to another lodging complaints. He spent hours together in
waiting-rooms, composed long petitions, shed tears, swore. To his
complaints the public prosecutor and the examining magistrate made
the indifferent and rational reply: "Come to us when you are summoned:
we have not time to attend to you now." While others answered: "It
is not our business."

The secretary, an educated man, who, Avdeyev thought, might have
helped him, merely shrugged his shoulders and said:

"It's your own fault. You shouldn't have been a sheep."

The old man exerted himself to the utmost, but his left leg was
still numb, and his digestion was getting worse and worse. When he
was weary of doing nothing and was getting poorer and poorer, he
made up his mind to go to his father's mill, or to his brother, and
begin dealing in corn. His family went to his father's and he was
left alone. The days flitted by, one after another. Without a family,
without a shop, and without money, the former churchwarden, an
honoured and respected man, spent whole days going the round of his
friends' shops, drinking, eating, and listening to advice. In the
mornings and in the evenings, to while away the time, he went to
church. Looking for hours together at the ikons, he did not pray,
but pondered. His conscience was clear, and he ascribed his position
to mistake and misunderstanding; to his mind, it was all due to the
fact that the officials and the examining magistrates were young
men and inexperienced. It seemed to him that if he were to talk it
over in detail and open his heart to some elderly judge, everything
would go right again. He did not understand his judges, and he
fancied they did not understand him.

The days raced by, and at last, after protracted, harassing delays,
the day of the trial came. Avdeyev borrowed fifty roubles, and
providing himself with spirit to rub on his leg and a decoction of