tomberai sur lui immediatement et que je
commencerai a le battre comme platre. Tous ces gens du bas etage sont
comme ca_ when they have to do with a gentleman. I need hardly say I
understood it all at once. _Voila vingt ans que je m'y prepare._ I opened
all the drawers and handed him all the keys; I gave them myself, I gave
him all. _J'etais digne et calme._ From the books he took the foreign
edition of Herzen, the bound volume of _The Bell,_ four copies of my poem,
_et enfin tout ca._ Then he took my letters and my papers _et quelques-unes
de mes ebauches historiques, critiques et politiques._ All that they
carried off. Nastasya says that a soldier wheeled them away in a barrow
and covered them with an apron; _oui, c'est cela,_ with an apron." It
sounded like delirium. Who could make head or tail of it? I pelted him
with questions again. Had Blum come alone, or with others? On whose
authority? By what right? How had he dared? How did he explain it?

"_Il etait seul, bien seul,_ but there was some one else _dans
l'antichambre, oui, je m'en souviens, et puis..._ Though I believe there
was some one else besides, and there was a guard standing in the entry.
You must ask Nastasya; she knows all about it better than I do. _J'etais
surexcite, voyez-vous. Il parlait, il parlait... un tas de chases_; he
said very little though, it was I said all that.... I told him the
story of my life, simply from that point of view, of course. _J'etais
surexcite, mais digne, je vous assure...._ I am afraid, though, I may
have shed tears. They got the barrow from the shop next door."

"Oh, heavens! how could all this have happened? But for mercy's sake,
speak more exactly, Stepan Trofimovitch. What you tell me sounds like a
dream."

"_Cher,_ I feel as though I were in a dream myself.... _Savez-vous! Il
a prononce le nom de Telyatnikof,_ and I believe that that man was
concealed in the entry. Yes, I remember, he suggested calling the
prosecutor and Dmitri Dmitritch, I believe... _qui me doit encore quinze
roubles_ I won at cards, _soit dit en passant. Enfin, je n'ai pas trop
compris._ But I got the better of them, and what do I care for Dmitri
Dmitritch? I believe I begged him very earnestly to keep it quiet;
I begged him particularly, most particularly. I am afraid I demeaned
myself, in fact, _comment croyez-vous? Enfin il a consenti._ Yes, I
remember, he suggested that himself--that it would be better to keep it
quiet, for he had only come