“The examining magistrate has just been with the police,” answered Vassily; “they’ve made a search.”

Avdeyev looked round him.  The cupboards, the chests, the tables—­ everything bore traces of the recent search.  For a minute Avdeyev stood motionless as though petrified, unable to understand; then his whole inside quivered and seemed to grow heavy, his left leg went numb, and, unable to endure his trembling, he lay down flat on the sofa.  He felt his inside heaving and his rebellious left leg tapping against the back of the sofa.

In the course of two or three minutes he recalled the whole of his past, but could not remember any crime deserving of the attention of the police.

“It’s all nonsense,” he said, getting up.  “They must have slandered me.  To-morrow I must lodge a complaint of their having dared to do such a thing.”

Next morning after a sleepless night Avdeyev, as usual, went to his shop.  His customers brought him the news that during the night the public prosecutor had sent the deputy manager and the head-clerk to prison as well.  This news did not disturb Avdeyev.  He was convinced that he had been slandered, and that if he were to lodge a complaint to-day the examining magistrate would get into trouble for the search of the night before.

Between nine and ten o’clock he hurried to the town hall to see the secretary, who was the only educated man in the town council.

“Vladimir Stepanitch, what’s this new fashion?” he said, bending down to the secretary’s ear.  “People have been stealing, but how do I come in?  What has it to do with me?  My dear fellow,” he whispered, “there has been a search at my house last night!  Upon my word!  Have they gone crazy?  Why touch me?”

“Because one shouldn’t be a sheep,” the secretary answered calmly.  “Before you sign you ought to look.”

“Look at what?  But if I were to look at those accounts for a thousand years I could not make head or tail of them!  It’s all Greek to me!  I am no book-keeper.  They used to bring them to me and I signed them.”

“Excuse me.  Apart from that you and your committee are seriously compromised.  You borrowed nineteen thousand from the bank, giving no security.”

“Lord have mercy upon us!” cried Avdeyev in amazement.  “I am not the only one in debt to the bank!  The whole town owes it money.  I pay the interest and I shall repay the debt.  What next!  And besides, to tell the honest truth, it wasn’t I myself borrowed the money.  Pyotr Semyonitch forced it upon me.  ‘Take it,’ he said, ’take it.  If you don’t take it,’ he said, ’it means that you don’t trust us and fight shy of us.  You take it,’ he said, ’and build your father a mill.’  So I took it.”

“Well, you see, none but children or sheep can reason like that.  In any case, signor, you need not be anxious.  You can’t escape trial, of course, but you are sure to be acquitted.”