I confess I don't understand why it's so arranged that women grab us by the nose as deftly as if it were a teapot handle. Either their hands are made for it, or our noses are no longer good for anything. And despite the fact that Ivan Nikiforovich's nose somewhat resembled a plum, she still grabbed him by that nose and led him around with her like a little dog. In her presence he even changed, involuntarily, his usual way of life: he did not spend so long lying in the sun, and if he did, it was not in his natural state but always in a shirt and trousers, though Agafya Fedoseevna by no means demanded it. She was not a lover of ceremony, and when Ivan Nikiforovich had a fever, she herself, with her own hands, rubbed him from head to foot with turpentine and vinegar. Agafya Fedoseevna wore a cap on her head, three warts on her nose, and a coffee-colored housecoat with little yellow flowers. Her whole body resembled a barrel, and therefore it was as hard to find her waist as to see your own nose without a mirror. Her legs were short, formed after the pattern of two pillows. She gossiped, ate boiled beets in the mornings, and cursed exceedingly well-her face never once changing its expression during all these diverse occupations, a thing which only women are customarily able to display.

As soon as she came, everything turned inside out.

"Don't make peace with him, Ivan Nikiforovich, and don't apologize: he wants to ruin you, that's the sort of man he is! You don't know him yet."

The accursed woman muttered and muttered and made it so that Ivan Nikiforovich didn't even want to hear about Ivan Ivanovich.

Everything looked different now: if a neighboring dog happened to get into the yard, it was beaten with whatever came to hand; the children who climbed over the fence came back screaming, their shirts tucked up, with traces of a birching on their backsides. Even the woman herself, when Ivan Ivanovich wished to ask her about something, performed such an indecency that Ivan Ivanovich, as a man of extreme delicacy, spat and said only, "What a nasty woman! Worse than her master!"

Finally, to crown all the insults, his hateful neighbor had a goose pen built directly facing him, where they used to climb over the wattle fence, as if with the special purpose of aggravating the insult. This pen, repulsive to Ivan Ivanovich, was built with devilish speed-in a single day.

This aroused anger and a desire for revenge in Ivan Ivanovich. He did not, however, show any sign of irritation, despite the fact that the pen even occupied a portion of his land; but his heart beat so hard that it was extremely difficult for him to maintain this external calm.

So he spent the day. Night came… Oh, if I were a painter, I would wondrously portray all the loveliness of the night! I would portray how all Mirgorod lies sleeping; how countless stars gaze motionlessly down on it; how the visible silence resounds with the near and far-off barking of dogs; how the amorous beadle races past them and climbs over the fence with chivalrous fearlessness; how the white walls of houses enveloped in moonlight turn still whiter, the trees above them turn darker, the shadow of the trees falls blacker, the flowers and hushed grass grow more fragrant, and the crickets, indefatigable cavaliers of the night, with one accord begin their chirping songs in all corners. I would portray how, in one of these low clay cottages, a dark-browed town girl with quivering young breasts tosses on her solitary bed dreaming of a hussar's mustache and spurs while moonlight laughs on her cheeks. I would portray how the black shadow of a bat flits over the white road and settles on the white chimneys of the houses… But I would scarcely be able to portray Ivan Ivanovich going out that night with a saw in his hand. So many different feelings were written on his face! Softly, softly he crept close and got under the goose pen. Ivan Nikiforovich's dogs still knew nothing of the quarrel between them and therefore allowed him, as an old friend, to approach the pen, which rested entirely on four oak posts. Coming to the nearest post, he put his saw to it and began sawing. The noise produced by the saw made him look around every moment, but the thought of the offense restored his courage. The first post was sawn through; Ivan Ivanovich went on to the next. His eyes glowed and saw nothing from fear. Suddenly Ivan Ivanovich cried out and went numb: a dead man appeared to him; but he quickly recovered, seeing it was a goose stretching out its neck toward him. Ivan Ivanovich spat in indignation and began to go on with his work. The second post was sawn through: the building lurched. Ivan Ivanovich's heart began to pound so terribly when he started on the third that he interrupted his work several times; it was already more than half sawn through when the unsteady building suddenly lurched badly… Ivan Ivanovich barely managed to jump clear as it collapsed with a crash. Grabbing his saw, terribly frightened, he went running home and threw himself on his bed, not having the courage even to look out the window at the consequences of his dreadful deed. He fancied that Ivan Nikiforovich's entire household had gathered: the old woman, Ivan Nikiforovich, the boy in the endless frock coat-armed with pikestaffs, Agafya Fedoseevna at their head, they were all coming to devastate and destroy his house.

The whole of the next day Ivan Ivanovich spent as if in a fever. He kept imagining that in revenge for it his hateful neighbor would at the very least set fire to his house. And he therefore gave Gapka orders to keep an eye out at all times everywhere for dry straw stuck someplace or other. Finally, in order to forestall Ivan

Nikiforovich, he decided to run ahead hare-like and make a claim against him in the Mirgorod local court. What it consisted of can be found out in the next chapter.

Chapter IV

About What Happened in the Office of the Mirgorod Local Court

A wonderful town, Mirgorod! What buildings it has! And with thatch, or rush, or even wooden roofs; a street to the right, a street to the left, excellent watde fences everywhere; hops twine over them, pots hang on them, from behind them the sunflower shows it sunlike head, poppies redden, fat pumpkins flash… Magnificent! A wattle fence is always adorned with objects that make it still more picturesque: a hanging apron, or a shift, or balloon trousers. In Mirgorod there is neither thievery nor crookery, and therefore everybody hangs up whatever he likes. When you get to the square, you're sure to stop for a while and admire the view: there is a puddle in it, an astonishing puddle! the only one like it you'll ever chance to see! It takes up almost the whole square. A beautiful puddle! The houses, big and small, which from afar might be taken for haystacks, stand around marveling at its beauty.

But to my mind there's no house better than the local courthouse. Whether it's made of oak or birch is not my affair; but it has eight windows, my dear sirs! eight windows in a row, looking right onto the square and that expanse of water of which I've already spoken and which the police chief calls a lake! It alone is painted a granite color: the rest of the houses of Mirgorod are simply whitewashed. Its roof is entirely of wood, and would even have been painted with red paint, if the oil prepared for that purpose had not been eaten, garnished with onion, by the clerks, which happened, as if by design, during a fast period, and so the roof went un-painted. The porch juts out into the square, and chickens often run about on it, because there's almost always grain or something else edible spilled on the porch, though that is not done on purpose but solely through the carelessness of the petitioners. It is divided into two halves: in one is the office, in the other the jail-house. In the half where the office is, there are two clean, whitewashed rooms: one, the anteroom, is for petitioners; in the other, there's a desk adorned with ink blots, and on it a zertsalo. 5 Four oak chairs with high backs; against the walls, ironbound chests containing piles of regional calumny. On one of these chests there then stood a boot polished with wax. The office had been open since morning. The judge, a rather plump man, though somewhat thinner than Ivan Nikiforovich, with a kindly mien, in a greasy housecoat, holding a pipe and a cup of tea, was talking with the court clerk. The judge's lips were right under his nose, and he could therefore sniff his upper lip to his heart's content. This lip served him as a snuffbox, because the snuff addressed to his nose almost always spilled on it. And so, the judge was talking with the court clerk. To one side stood a barefoot girl holding a tray with teacups.