"Thief, who killed his son!" flamed through his brain, and there was a feeling in his throat like heartburn.
"You are therefore accused," said Gromov in a friendly voice, but Ilya did not see who was addressed; he looked at Petrusha's face, oppressed with doubt and could not reconcile himself to the thought that Filimonov should be a dispenser of justice.
"Now, tell us," asked the president, rubbing his forehead. "You said to the tradesman Anissimov, you wait! I'll pay you for this!"
A ventilator squeaked somewhere, "ee—oo, ee—oo."
Among the jury Ilya saw two other faces he knew. Behind Petrusha and above him sat a worker in stucco—Silatschev, a big peasant's figure with long arms and little ill-tempered face, a friend of Filimonov and his constant companion at cards. It was told of Silatschev, that once in a quarrel he had pushed his master from a scaffolding, with fatal result. And in the front row, two places from Petrusha sat Dodonov, the proprietor of a big fancy-ware shop. Ilya bought from him and knew him for hard and grasping and a man who had been twice bankrupt, and paid his creditors only ten per cent.
"Witness! when did you see that Anissimov's house was on fire?"
The ventilator lamented steadily, seeming to echo the sadness in Lunev's breast.
"Fool!" said the man next him in a whisper. Ilya looked round, it was the little dark man who now sat with his lips contemptuously drawn.
"A fool," he repeated, nodding to Ilya.
"Who?" whispered Ilya stupidly.