d then you're to
answer!"

CHAPTER IX. A RAID AT STEFAN TROFIMOVITCH'S

Meanwhile an incident had occurred which astounded me and shattered
Stepan Trofimovitch. At eight o'clock in the morning Nastasya ran round
to me from him with the news that her master was "raided." At first I
could not make out what she meant; I could only gather that the "raid"
was carried out by officials, that they had come and taken his papers,
and that a soldier had tied them up in a bundle and "wheeled them away
in a barrow." It was a fantastic story. I hurried at once to Stepan
Trofimovitch.

I found him in a surprising condition: upset and in great agitation, but
at the same time unmistakably triumphant. On the table in the middle of
the room the samovar was boiling, and there was a glass of tea poured
out but untouched and forgotten. Stepan Trofimovitch was wandering round
the table and peeping into every corner of the room, unconscious of what
he was doing. He was wearing his usual red knitted jacket, but seeing
me, he hurriedly put on his coat and waistcoat--a thing he had never
done before when any of his intimate friends found him in his jacket. He
took me warmly by the hand at once.

_"Enfin un ami!"_ (He heaved a deep sigh.) "_Cher,_ I've sent to you only,
and no one knows anything. We must give Nastasya orders to lock the
doors and not admit anyone, except, of course them.... _Vous comprenez?_"

He looked at me uneasily, as though expecting a reply. I made haste, of
course, to question him, and from his disconnected and broken sentences,
full of unnecessary parentheses, I succeeded in learning that at seven
o'clock that morning an official of the province had 'all of a sudden'
called on him.

"_Pardon, j'ai oublie son nom. Il n'est pas du pays,_ but I think he came
to the town with Lembke, _quelque chose de bete et d'Allemand dans la
physionomie. Il s'appelle Rosenthal._"

"Wasn't it Blum?"

"Yes, that was his name. _Vous le connaissez? Quelque chose d'hebete et
de tres content dans la figure, pourtant tres severe, roide et serieux._
A type of the police, of the submissive subordinates, _je m'y connais._ I
was still asleep, and, would you believe it, he asked to have a look at
my books and manuscripts! _Oui, je m'en souviens, il a employe ce mot._ He
did not arrest me, but only the books. _Il se tenait a distance,_ and when
he began to explain his visit he looked as though I... _enfin il
avait l'air de croire que je