me, come--no need to go over your grievances! This very minute
your grenadier must turn out! Do you understand?"

"You ought to be ashamed, sir," said Pelagea, and he could hear the
tears in her voice. "Gentlefolks . . . educated, and yet not a
notion that with our hard lot . . . in our life of toil"--she
burst into tears. "It's easy to insult us. There's no one to stand
up for us."

"Come, come . . . I don't mind! Your mistress sent me. You may let
a devil in at the window for all I care!"

There was nothing left for the assistant procurator but to acknowledge
himself in the wrong and go back to his spouse.

"I say, Pelagea," he said, "you had my dressing-gown to brush. Where
is it?"

"Oh, I am so sorry, sir; I forgot to put it on your chair. It's
hanging on a peg near the stove."

Gagin felt for the dressing-gown by the stove, put it on, and went
quietly back to his room.

When her husband went out Marya Mihalovna got into bed and waited.
For the first three minutes her mind was at rest, but after that
she began to feel uneasy.

"What a long time he's gone," she thought. "It's all right if he
is there . . . that immoral man . . . but if it's a burglar?"

And again her imagination drew a picture of her husband going into
the dark kitchen . . . a blow with an axe . . . dying without
uttering a single sound . . . a pool of blood! . . .

Five minutes passed . . . five and a half . . . at last six. . . .
A cold sweat came out on her forehead.

"_Basile!_" she shrieked, "_Basile!_"

"What are you shouting for? I am here." She heard her husband's
voice and steps. "Are you being murdered?"

The assistant procurator went up to the bedstead and sat down on
the edge of it.

"There's nobody there at all," he said. "It was your fancy, you
queer creature. . . . You can sleep easy, your fool of a Pelagea
is as virtuous as her mistress. What a coward you are! What a . . . ."

And the deputy procurator began teasing his wife. He was wide awake
now and did not want to go to sleep again.

"You are a coward!" he laughed. "You'd better go to the doctor
to-morrow and tell him about your hallucinations. You are a neurotic!"

"What a smell of tar," said his wife--"tar or something . . .
onion . . . cabbage soup!"

"Y-yes! There is a smell . . . I am not sleepy. I say, I'll light
the candle. . . . Where are the matches? And, by the way, I'll show
you the photograph of the procurator of the Palace of Justice. He
gave u