One of these tales made a deep impression upon me, and I still remember the chief incidents.  The story opens with the description of a village in late autumn.  It has been raining for some time heavily, and the road has become covered with a deep layer of black mud.  An old woman—­a small proprietor—­is sitting at home with a friend, drinking tea and trying to read the future by means of a pack of cards.  This occupation is suddenly interrupted by the entrance of a female servant, who announces that she has discovered an old man, apparently very ill, lying in one of the outhouses.  The old woman goes out to see her uninvited guest, and, being of a kindly nature, prepares to have him removed to a more comfortable place, and properly attended to; but her servant whispers to her that perhaps he is a vagrant, and the generous impulse is thereby checked.  When it is discovered that the suspicion is only too well founded, and that the man has no passport, the old woman becomes thoroughly alarmed.  Her imagination pictures to her the terrible consequences that would ensue if the police should discover that she had harboured a vagrant.  All her little fortune might be extorted from her.  And if the old man should happen to die in her house or farmyard!  The consequences in that case might be very serious.  Not only might she lose everything, but she might even be dragged to prison.  At the sight of these dangers the old woman forgets her tender-heartedness, and becomes inexorable.  The old man, sick unto death though he be, must leave the premises instantly.  Knowing full well that he will nowhere find a refuge, he walks forth into the cold, dark, stormy night, and next morning a dead body is found at a short distance from the village.

Why this story, which was not strikingly remarkable for artistic merit, impressed me so deeply I cannot say.  Perhaps it was because I was myself ill at the time, and imagined how terrible it would be to be turned out on the muddy road on a cold, wet October night.  Besides this, the story interested me as illustrating the terror which the police inspired during the reign of Nicholas I. The ingenious devices which they employed for extorting money formed the subject of another sketch, which I read shortly afterwards, and which has likewise remained in my memory.  The facts were as follows:  An officer of rural police, when driving on a country road, finds a dead body by the wayside.  Congratulating himself on this bit of good luck, he proceeds to the nearest village, and lets the inhabitants know that all manner of legal proceedings will be taken against them, so that the supposed murderer may be discovered.  The peasants are of course frightened, and give him a considerable sum of money in order that he may hush up the affair.  An ordinary officer of police would have been quite satisfied with this ransom, but this officer is not an ordinary man, and is very much in need of money; he conceives, therefore, the brilliant idea of repeating