r midnight interview, he promptly
threw out this bait, which caught Paklin at once.)

"Since you know that," he began and bit his tongue a second time ... But
it was already too late. A single glance at Sipiagin made him realise
that he had been playing with him as a cat plays with a mouse.

"I must say, your excellency," the unfortunate Paklin stammered out; "I
must say, that I really know nothing--"

"But I ask you no questions! Really! What do you take me and yourself
for?" Sipiagin asked haughtily, and promptly withdrew into his
ministerial heights.

And Paklin again felt himself a mean little ensnared creature. Until
that moment he had kept the cigar in the corner of his mouth away from
Sipiagin and puffed at it quietly, blowing the smoke to one side; now he
took it out of his mouth and ceased smoking altogether.

"My God!" he groaned inwardly, while the perspiration streamed down his
back more and more, "what have I done? I have betrayed everything and
everybody... I have been duped, been bought over by a good cigar!! I am
a traitor! What shall I do now to help matters? Oh God!"

But there was nothing to be done. Sipiagin dozed off in a haughty,
dignified, ministerial manner, enveloped in his stately cloak.

XXXV

THE governor of S. was one of those good-natured, happy-go-lucky,
worldly generals who, endowed with wonderfully clean, snow-white bodies
and souls to match, of good breeding and education, are turned out of a
mill where they are never ground down to becoming the "shepherds of
the people." Nevertheless they prove themselves capable of a tolerable
amount of administrative ability--do little work, but are forever
sighing after St. Petersburg and paying court to all the pretty women of
the place. These are men who in some unaccountable way become useful to
their province and manage to leave pleasant memories behind them. The
governor had only just got out of bed, and was comfortably seated before
his dressing-table in his night-shirt and silk dressing-gown, bathing
his face and neck with eau-de-cologne after having removed a whole
collection of charms and coins dangling from it, when he was informed of
the arrival of Sipiagin and Kollomietzev upon some urgent business. He
was very familiar with Sipiagin, having known him from childhood and
constantly run across him in St. Petersburg drawing-rooms, and lately he
had begun to ejaculate a respectful "Ah!" every time his name occurred
to him--as