imply carried her off to her
own house. Here she was at once taken up by our madcaps, made much of,
loaded with presents, and kept for four days without being sent back to
her husband. She stayed at the adventurous lady's all day long, drove
about with her and all the sportive company in expeditions about the
town, and took part in dances and merry-making. They kept egging her
on to haul her husband before the court and to make a scandal. They
declared that they would all support her and would come and bear
witness. The husband kept quiet, not daring to oppose them. The poor
thing realised at last that she had got into a hopeless position and,
more dead than alive with fright, on the fourth day she ran off in the
dusk from her protectors to her lieutenant. It's not definitely known
what took place between husband and wife, but two shutters of the
low-pitched little house in which the lieutenant lodged were not opened
for a fortnight. Yulia Mihailovna was angry with the mischief-makers
when she heard about it all, and was greatly displeased with the
conduct of the adventurous lady, though the latter had presented the
lieutenant's wife to her on the day she carried her off. However, this
was soon forgotten.

Another time a petty clerk, a respectable head of a family, married his
daughter, a beautiful girl of seventeen, known to every one in the town,
to another petty clerk, a young man who came from a different district.
But suddenly it was learned that the young husband had treated the
beauty very roughly on the wedding night, chastising her for what he
regarded as a stain on his honour. Lyamshin, who was almost a witness of
the affair, because he got drunk at the wedding and so stayed the night,
as soon as day dawned, ran round with the diverting intelligence.

Instantly a party of a dozen was made up, all of them on horseback, some
on hired Cossack horses, Pyotr Stepanovitch, for instance, and Liputin,
who, in spite of his grey hairs, took part in almost every scandalous
adventure of our reckless youngsters. When the young couple appeared in
the street in a droshky with a pair of horses to make the calls which
are obligatory in our town on the day after a wedding, in spite of
anything that may happen, the whole cavalcade, with merry laughter,
surrounded the droshky and followed them about the town all the morning.
They did not, it's true, go into the house, but waited for them
outside, on horseback. They refrained fro