"I say nothing," replied the court clerk.
"Such goings-on!" continued the judge.
Before he finished saying it, the door creaked and the front half of Ivan Nikiforovich heaved itself into the office, while the rest remained in the anteroom. The appearance of Ivan Nikiforovich-and, what's more, in court-seemed so extraordinary that the judge cried out; the secretary broke off his reading. One office boy in the frieze likeness of a half-tailcoat put a quill in his mouth; the other swallowed a fly. Even the invalid who fulfilled the functions of both messenger and watchman, who till then had been standing by the door scratching under his dirty shirt with stripes sewn to the shoulder, even this invalid gaped and stepped on somebody's foot.
"What fates bring you here? why and wherefore? How are you, Ivan Nikiforovich?"
But Ivan Nikiforovich was neither dead nor alive, because he had gotten mired in the doorway and could not make a step forward or back. In vain did the judge shout into the anteroom for someone there to shove Ivan Nikiforovich into the office from behind. There was only one petitioner in the anteroom, an old woman, who, despite all the efforts of her bony arms, could do nothing. Then one of the office boys, with fat lips, broad shoulders, a fat nose, and torn elbows, his eyes glancing about slyly and drunkenly, went up to the front part of Ivan Nikiforovich, folded his arms crosswise as if he were a child, and winked to the old invalid, who placed his knee against Ivan Nikiforovich's belly, and, despite his pitiful moans, squeezed him out into the anteroom. Then they slid back the bolts and opened the other half of the door. While they were at it, the office boy and his helper, the invalid, in their concerted efforts, spread such a strong smell with their breath that the office turned for a time into a public house.
"Did they hurt you, Ivan Nikiforovich? I'll tell my mother, she'll send you a tincture-just rub your shoulders and lower back, and it will all go away."
But Ivan Nikiforovich sank onto a chair and, apart from prolonged oh's, was unable to say anything. Finally, in a weak voice, barely audible from exhaustion, he uttered:
"Will you indulge?" and, taking the snuff bottle from his pocket, added, "here, help yourselves!"
"I'm very pleased to see you," answered the judge. "But, all the same, I can't imagine what made you undertake the effort and present us with such an agreeable unexpectedness."
"A petition…" was all Ivan Nikiforovich could utter.
"A petition? What sort?"
"A claim…" here breathlessness produced a long pause, "ohh!… a claim against a crook… Ivan Ivanovich Pererepenko."
"Lord! you too! Such rare friends! A claim against such a virtuous man!…"
"He's Satan in person!" Ivan Nikiforovich said curtly.
The judge crossed himself.
"Take the petition and read it."
"Nothing to do but read it, Taras Tikhonovich," said the judge, addressing the secretary with an air of displeasure, and his nose inadvertently sniffed his upper lip, which previously it used to do only from great pleasure. Such willfulness on the part of his nose vexed the judge still more. He took out his handkerchief and swept all the snuff from his upper lip in punishment for its insolence.
The secretary, having performed his usual start-up, which he always resorted to before beginning to read, that is, without the aid of a handkerchief, began in his usual voice, thus:
"A petition from Ivan, son of Nikifor, Dovgochkhun, gentleman of the Mirgorod region, and on what, the points follow herewith:
"1. From his hateful spite and obvious ill will, Ivan, son of Ivan, Pererepenko, who calls himself a gentleman, is causing me various losses, doing me dirt, and performing other devious and terrifying acts, and yesterday, like a robber and a thief, with axes, saws, chisels, and other metalworking tools, got into my yard during the night and with his very own hands and in blameworthy fashion did chop up my very own goose pen located therein. For which, on my part, I never gave any cause for such an illegal and marauding act.
"2. The said gendeman Pererepenko presumes upon my very life and, having kept this intention secret until the 7th day of the last month, came to me and in a friendly and cunning fashion started begging for my gun, which was in my room, offering me, with his particular niggardliness, a lot of worthless things-to wit: a brown sow and two measures of oats. But, divining his criminal intention even then, I made every effort to divert him from it; but the said crook and scoundrel, Ivan, son of Ivan, Pererepenko, did abuse me in a churlish manner, and since then has nursed an irreconcilable enmity toward me. Furthermore, the said oft-mentioned violent gentleman and robber, Ivan, son of Ivan, Pererepenko, is of quite blameworthy origin: his sister was a notorious strumpet who went off with a company of chasseurs that was quartered in Mirgorod five years ago; and she registered her husband as a peasant. His father and mother were also most lawless people, and both were unimaginable drunkards. Yet the above-mentioned gentleman and robber Pererepenko has exceeded all his relations in bestial and blameworthy acts and, in the guise of piety, does the most godless things: does not keep fasts, for on the eve of St. Philip's Day 8 this apostate bought a lamb and ordered his lawless wench Gapka to slaughter it the next day, explaining that he supposedly needed tallow just then for lamps and candles.
"Therefore I request that this gentleman, being a robber, a blasphemer, and a crook, already caught thieving and marauding, be put in irons and conveyed to prison, or to the state jail, and that there, on discretion, being stripped of his ranks and nobility, he be given a good basting with birch rods and be sent to hard labor in Siberia as necessary; that he be made to pay all expenses and losses, and that a decision be forthcoming on this my petition.
"Setting hand to which petition, I am Ivan, son of Nikifor, Dovgochkhun, gentleman of the Mirgorod region."
As soon as the secretary finished reading, Ivan Nikiforovich took his hat and bowed, with the intention of leaving.
"What's the hurry, Ivan Nikiforovich?" the judge called after him. "Stay a while! have some tea! Oryshko! Why are you standing there, stupid girl, winking at the office boys? Go and bring tea!"
But Ivan Nikiforovich, frightened to have gone so far from home and to have endured such a dangerous quarantine, had already managed to get through the door, saying:
"Don't trouble yourself, it's my pleasure…" and closed it behind him, leaving the whole office in amazement.
There was nothing to be done. Both petitions were accepted, and the affair was about to take a rather interesting turn when one unforeseen circumstance lent it still greater amusement. As the judge was leaving the office in the company of the court clerk and the secretary, while the office boys were filling a sack with the chickens, eggs, loaves of bread, pies, knishes, and other stuff brought by petitioners, just then a brown sow ran into the room and, to the astonishment of those present, snatched-not a pie or crust of bread, but Ivan Nikiforovich's petition, which lay at the end of the table with its pages hanging down. Having snatched the paper, the brown porker ran off so quickly that none of the officials could catch her, despite the hurling of rulers and ink bottles. This extraordinary incident caused terrible turmoil, because a copy had not even been made of it yet. The judge-that is, his secretary and the court clerk-discussed this unheard-of circumstance for a long time; the decision was finally taken to write a report about it to the police chief, since the investigation of this case belonged rather to the civil police. Report No. 389 was sent to him that same day, whereupon there took place a rather curious conversation, which readers may learn about in the next chapter.
Chapter V
Which Contains an Account of a
Meeting Between Two Distinguished
Persons of Mirgorod
Ivan Ivanovich had only just finished his household chores and gone out, as usual, to lie on the gallery, when, to his unutterable astonishment, he saw something red in the gateway. It was the police chief's cuff, which, along with his collar, had acquired a polish and turned at the edges into patent leather. Ivan Ivanovich thought to himself: "That's nice, Pyotr Fyodorovich is coming for a chat," but was very astonished to see the police chief come in extremely quickly and swinging his arms, which usually happened with him quite seldom. On the police chief's uniform sat eight buttons, the ninth having been torn off during the procession for the blessing of the church some two years earlier, so that the policemen were still unable to find it, though the police chief, while receiving the daily reports of the precinct officers, always asked whether the button had been found. These eight buttons sat on him the way peasant women plant beans, one to the left, another to the right. His left leg had been shot through in the last campaign, which caused him, as he limped, to throw it so far to the side that he thereby undid almost all the labor of the right leg. The more speedily the police chief sent his infantry into action, the less it advanced. And therefore, before the police chief reached the gallery, Ivan Ivanovich had plenty of time to lose himself in conjectures as to the reason why the police chief was swinging his arms so quickly He was the more interested as the matter seemed to be of extraordinary importance, for he even had a new sword on him.