“‘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 leach married the coachman’s widow to-day.’
“I just looked at him; but, it seems, looked at him so 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?’