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“Well, I thought, it is either that the poor fellow lacks the necessary coin or maybe he has entered on the right path, and has at last listened to good sense.

“Well, to make a long story short, an important holiday came just at that time, and I went to vespers. When I came back I saw Emelian sitting on the window-seat as drunk as a lord. Eh! I thought, so that is what you are about! And I go to my trunk to get out something I needed. I look! The breeches are not there. I rummage about in this place and that place: gone! Well, after I had searched all over and saw that they were missing for fair, I felt as if something had gone through me! I went after the old woman — as to Emelian, though there was evidence against him in his being drunk, I somehow never thought of him!

“‘No,’ says my old woman; ‘the good Lord keep you, gentleman, what do I need breeches for! can I wear them? I myself missed a skirt the other day. I know nothing at all about it.’

“‘Well,’ I asked, ‘has anyone called here?’

“‘No one called,’ she said.’I was in all the time; your friend here went out for a short while and then came back; here he sits! Why don’t you ask him?’

“‘Did you happen, for some reason or other, Emelian, to take the breeches out of the trunk? The ones, you remember, which were made for the landowner?’

“‘No,’ he says, ‘I have not taken them, Astafi Ivanich.’

“‘What could have happened to them?’ Again I began to search, but nothing came of it! And Emelian sat and swayed to and fro on the window-seat.

“I was on my knees before the open trunk, just in front of him. Suddenly I threw a sidelong glance at him. Ech, I thought, and felt very hot round the heart, and my face grew very red. Suddenly my eyes encountered Emelian’s.

“‘No,’ he says, ‘Astafi Ivanich. You perhaps think that I — you know what I mean — but I have not taken them.’

“‘But where have they gone, Emelian?’

“‘No,’ he says, ‘Astafi Ivanich, I have not seen them at all.’

“‘Well, then, you think they simply went and got lost by themselves, Emelian?’

“‘Maybe they did, Astafi Ivanich.’

“After this I would not waste another word on him. I rose from my knees, locked the trunk, and after I had lighted the lamp I sat down to work. I was remaking a vest for a government clerk, who lived on the floor below. But I was terribly rattled, just the same. It would have been much easier to bear, I thought, if all my wardrobe had burned to ashes. Emelian, it seems, felt that I was deeply angered. It is always so, sir, when a man is guilty; he always feels beforehand when trouble approaches, as a bird feels the coming storm.

“‘And do you know, Astafi Ivanich,’ he suddenly began, ‘the leech married the coachman’s widow today.’

“I just looked at him; but, it seems, looked at him s
o angrily that he understood: I saw him rise from his seat, approach the bed, and begin to rummage in it, continually repeating: ‘Where could they have gone? Vanished, as if the devil had taken them!’

“I waited to see what was coming; I saw that my Emelian had crawled under the bed. I could contain myself no longer.

“‘Look here,’ I said.’What makes you crawl under the bed?’

“‘I am looking for the breeches, Astafi Ivanich,’ said Emelian from under the bed.’Maybe they got here somehow or other.’

“‘But what makes you, sir (in my anger I addressed him as if he was — somebody), what makes you trouble yourself on account of such a plain man as I am; dirtying your knees for nothing!’