“Where have you been to-day?” asked Ivan Ivanovitch, wishing to cut the chief short and bring him more speedily to the object of his visit. He would have very much liked to inquire what the chief meant to tell him, but his extensive knowledge of the world showed him the impropriety of such a question; and so he had to keep himself well in hand and await a solution, his heart, meanwhile, beating with unusual force.
“Ah, excuse me! I was going to tell you—where was I?” answered the chief of police. “In the first place, I report that the weather is fine to-day.”
At these last words, Ivan Ivanovitch nearly died.
“But permit me,” went on the chief. “I have come to you to-day about a very important affair.” Here the chief’s face and bearing assumed the same careworn aspect with which he had ascended to the balcony.
Ivan Ivanovitch breathed again, and shook as if in a fever, omitting not, as was his habit, to put a question. “What is the important matter? Is it important?”
“Pray judge for yourself; in the first place I venture to report to you, dear friend and benefactor, Ivan Ivanovitch, that you—I beg you to observe that, for my own part, I should have nothing to say; but the rules of government require it—that you have transgressed the rules of propriety.”
“What do you mean, Peter Feodorovitch? I don’t understand at all.”
“Pardon me, Ivan Ivanovitch! how can it be that you do not understand? Your own beast has destroyed an important government document; and you can still say, after that, that you do not understand!”
“What beast?”
“Your own brown sow, with your permission, be it said.”