“Please help yourselves, gentlemen!” the marshal’s widow presses them.  “Only you must excuse me, I have no vodka. . . .  I have none in the house.”

The guests approach the table and hesitatingly attack the pie.  But the progress with eating is slow.  In the plying of forks, in the cutting up and munching, there is a certain sloth and apathy. . . .  Evidently something is wanting.

“I feel as though I had lost something,” one of the justices of the peace whispers to the other.  “I feel as I did when my wife ran away with the engineer. . . .  I can’t eat.”

Marfutkin, before beginning to eat, fumbles for a long time in his pocket and looks for his handkerchief.

“Oh, my handkerchief must be in my greatcoat,” he recalls in a loud voice, “and here I am looking for it,” and he goes into the vestibule where the fur coats are hanging up.

He returns from the vestibule with glistening eyes, and at once attacks the pie with relish.

“I say, it’s horrid munching away with a dry mouth, isn’t it?” he whispers to Father Yevmeny.  “Go into the vestibule, Father.  There’s a bottle there in my fur coat. . . .  Only mind you are careful; don’t make a clatter with the bottle.”

Father Yevmeny recollects that he has some direction to give to Luka, and trips off to the vestibule.

“Father, a couple of words in confidence,” says Dvornyagin, overtaking him.

“You should see the fur coat I’ve bought myself, gentlemen,” Hrumov boasts.  “It’s worth a thousand, and I gave . . . you won’t believe it . . . two hundred and fifty!  Not a farthing more.”

At any other time the guests would have greeted this information with indifference, but now they display surprise and incredulity.  In the end they all troop out into the vestibule to look at the fur coat, and go on looking at it till the doctor’s man Mikeshka carries five empty bottles out on the sly.  When the steamed sturgeon is served, Marfutkin remembers that he has left his cigar case in his sledge and goes to the stable.  That he may not be lonely on this expedition, he takes with him the deacon, who appropriately feels it necessary to have a look at his horse. . . .

On the evening of the same day, Lyubov Petrovna is sitting in her study, writing a letter to an old friend in Petersburg: 

“To-day, as in past years,” she writes among other things, “I had a memorial service for my dear husband.  All my neighbours came to the service.  They are a simple, rough set, but what hearts!  I gave them a splendid lunch, but of course, as in previous years, without a drop of alcoholic liquor.  Ever since he died from excessive drinking I have vowed to establish temperance in this district and thereby to expiate his sins.  I have begun the campaign for temperance at my own house.  Father Yevmeny is delighted with my efforts, and helps me both in word and deed.  Oh, ma chere, if you knew how fond my bears are of me!  The