ed my
cheek, nasty creature!"

"Make haste and get out or they'll think we are stealing the
chickens."

"In a minute. . . . I can't find my cape anywhere. . . . There are
lots of old rags here, and I can't tell where the cape is. Throw
me a match."

"I haven't any."

"We are in a hole, I must say! What am I to do? I can't go without
my cape and my portfolio. I must find them."

"I can't understand a man's not knowing his own cottage," says Laev
indignantly. "Drunken beast. . . . If I'd known I was in for this
sort of thing I would never have come with you. I should have been
at home and fast asleep by now, and a nice fix I'm in here. . . .
I'm fearfully done up and thirsty, and my head is going round."

"In a minute, in a minute. . . . You won't expire."

A big cock flies crowing over Laev's head. Laev heaves a deep sigh,
and with a hopeless gesture sits down on a stone. He is beset with
a burning thirst, his eyes are closing, his head drops forward. . . .
Five minutes pass, ten, twenty, and Kozyavkin is still busy among
the hens.

"Petya, will you be long?"

"A minute. I found the portfolio, but I have lost it again."

Laev lays his head on his fists, and closes his eyes. The cackling
of the fowls grows louder and louder. The inhabitants of the empty
cottage fly out of the window and flutter round in circles, he
fancies, like owls over his head. His ears ring with their cackle,
he is overwhelmed with terror.

"The beast!" he thinks. "He invited me to stay, promising me wine
and junket, and then he makes me walk from the station and listen
to these hens. . . ."

In the midst of his indignation his chin sinks into his collar, he
lays his head on his portfolio, and gradually subsides. Weariness
gets the upper hand and he begins to doze.

"I've found the portfolio!" he hears Kozyavkin cry triumphantly.
"I shall find the cape in a minute and then off we go!"

Then through his sleep he hears the barking of dogs. First one dog
barks, then a second, and a third. . . . And the barking of the
dogs blends with the cackling of the fowls into a sort of savage
music. Someone comes up to Laev and asks him something. Then he
hears someone climb over his head into the window, then a knocking
and a shouting. . . . A woman in a red apron stands beside him with
a lantern in her hand and asks him something.

"You've no right to say so," he hears Kozyavkin's voice. "I am a
lawyer, a bachelor of laws--Kozyavkin--here's