“‘Wherever you like. It was nothing but an absurd mistake.’”
“Why, yes, of course,” remarked the officer in a dignified manner, but in a certain tone of relief; “that was to be expected.”
“Yes,” continued the narrator; “‘a mistake,’ says he. ‘Ah, well,’ thought I to myself, ‘may the Lord be praised for that.’ I just gathered up my coat-tails, and off I went—it was after dark—to the railway station. And when I got to that cursed town of ours, I drove through it hiding my face, and went straight to my own farmhouse. I didn’t even go into the new house; and to this day I don’t care to live in it, as I hope to be saved! If anybody cared to buy it of me, I’d sell it at their own price. Well, I got to the farm, and shut myself up under lock and key, and wouldn’t let the workmen or clerks or any one come near me; I wouldn’t even have my wife and children about me. I couldn’t come to myself after it all; I wasn’t fit for anything; it seemed as if I couldn’t move a limb. I just ate and slept, ate and slept; that was all I cared to do.”
“That’s the way you took your recreation, I suppose,” asked one of the skinflints.
“You’re in too much of a hurry—recreation! Just hear what happened next.”
“You don’t mean to say anything more happened?” asked the officer.
“Oh, dear me! yes. You see, it was always one mistake after another; and we never could get to the root of the thing. You’ll see how it all came out at last.”
“And where was the apothecary?”
“You’ll hear; only I must tell you from the beginning. The apothecary’ll turn up if you wait a bit. Well, you see, I stopped at the farm a month, eating and sleeping, and unstiffening my joints in the bath; and I left the house in town to my nephew to look after; and, my word, he did give those scoundrels a lesson! He’s the lad to make the sparks fly! But all that doesn’t belong to the story. Well, as I said, I stopped there a month, resting and coming to my senses, when one day, who should come riding up but a mounted gendarme! My heart just leaped into my mouth! Lord have mercy upon us sinners! What could it be? He handed me a paper—a summons to appear in court ‘What for?’—‘It says there.’—So I read the paper; it was a summons to appear and answer for insulting the police in the discharge of their duty. Very good; I read it, and signed my name. But it just made my heart burn—that was really too much of a good thing! What sort of duty do they call that? I’m hit over the head, and I’m responsible! I can’t see much duty in promiscuous fisticuffing. ‘No, no, my friends,’ thought I to myself, ‘I’ve had enough of this; you’ve played your little game, and that’ll do. If his Excellency himself took my part, and let me go free as an innocent man, you needn’t think you can get the better of me, not a bit of it!’ I had a troika harnessed at once, went straight to the town, and telegraphed to Moscow for an advocate: ‘Fisticuffing versus Fisticuffing. Prosecution. Will pay 1,000 roubles.’ And a fine kettle of fish they got ready! So when the trial was to be, I went to Moscow with my wife. We got to the court quite early, before nine in the morning; and the trial wasn’t to begin till twelve; so we sat down in the porch to wait. All of a sudden up comes my apothecary. He came along dragging one foot after the other, all thin and shabby, for all the world like a beggar.—‘Where have you come from?’ I asked him.—‘That’s more than I know myself; my health’s gone to pieces; I’ve got rheumatism in both my legs; I’m half dead.’—And it was quite true; he had a cough, and couldn’t get his breath. He sat down on the step with us, and I said to him: ‘Well, well, friend! your pills have cost me something; I shall remember them, never fear!’—‘D’you think they didn’t cost me anything?’ says he.—And so he told me how it had all happened: how he missed me at the tavern, and all that I told you before. ‘To this day,’ he said, ‘I haven’t got back the use of my arm, since they hit me on the shoulder when they took away the pills,’
