Puffing and panting, Laev gives him a leg up, and Kozyavkin climbs in at the window and vanishes into the darkness within.

“Vera!” Laev hears a minute later, “where are you? . . .  D—­damnation!  Tphoo!  I’ve put my hand into something!  Tphoo!”

There is a rustling sound, a flapping of wings, and the desperate cackling of a fowl.

“A nice state of things,” Laev hears.  “Vera, where on earth did these chickens come from?  Why, the devil, there’s no end of them!  There’s a basket with a turkey in it. . . .  It pecks, the nasty creature.”

Two hens fly out of the window, and cackling at the top of their voices, flutter down the village street.

“Alyosha, we’ve made a mistake!” says Kozyavkin in a lachrymose voice.  “There are a lot of hens here. . . .  I must have mistaken the house.  Confound you, you are all over the place, you cursed brutes!”

“Well, then, make haste and come down.  Do you hear?  I am dying of thirst!”

“In a minute. . . .  I am looking for my cape and portfolio.”

“Light a match.”

“The matches are in the cape. . . .  I was a crazy idiot to get into this place.  The cottages are exactly alike; the devil himself couldn’t tell them apart in the dark.  Aie, the turkey’s pecked my cheek, nasty creature!”

“Make haste and get out or they’ll think we are stealing the chickens.”

“In a minute. . . .  I can’t find my cape anywhere. . . .  There are lots of old rags here, and I can’t tell where the cape is.  Throw me a match.”

“I haven’t any.”

“We are in a hole, I must say!  What am I to do?  I can’t go without my cape and my portfolio.  I must find them.”

“I can’t understand a man’s not knowing his own cottage,” says Laev indignantly.  “Drunken beast. . . .  If I’d known I was in for this sort of thing I would never have come with you.  I should have been at home and fast asleep by now, and a nice fix I’m in here. . . .  I’m fearfully done up and thirsty, and my head is going round.”

“In a minute, in a minute. . . .  You won’t expire.”

A big cock flies crowing over Laev’s head.  Laev heaves a deep sigh, and with a hopeless gesture sits down on a stone.  He is beset with a burning thirst, his eyes are closing, his head drops forward. . . .  Five minutes pass, ten, twenty, and Kozyavkin is still busy among the hens.

“Petya, will you be long?”

“A minute.  I found the portfolio, but I have lost it again.”

Laev lays his head on his fists, and closes his eyes.  The cackling of the fowls grows louder and louder.  The inhabitants of the empty cottage fly out of the window and flutter round in circles, he fancies, like owls over his head.  His ears ring with their cackle, he is overwhelmed with terror.

“The beast!” he thinks.  “He invited me to stay, promising me wine and junket, and then he makes me walk from the station and listen to these hens. . . .”