Vankin blinked and twitched in every fibre of his battered countenance, raised his eyes to the icon and articulated, “God blast me!  Strike me blind and lay me out, if I said a single word about you!  May I be left without house and home, may I be stricken with worse than cholera!”

Vankin’s sincerity did not admit of doubt.  It was evidently not he who was the author of the slander.

“But who, then, who?” Ahineev wondered, going over all his acquaintances in his mind and beating himself on the breast.  “Who, then?”

Who, then?  We, too, ask the reader.

MINDS IN FERMENT

(FROM THE ANNALS OF A TOWN)

The earth was like an oven.  The afternoon sun blazed with such energy that even the thermometer hanging in the excise officer’s room lost its head:  it ran up to 112.5 and stopped there, irresolute.  The inhabitants streamed with perspiration like overdriven horses, and were too lazy to mop their faces.

Two of the inhabitants were walking along the market-place in front of the closely shuttered houses.  One was Potcheshihin, the local treasury clerk, and the other was Optimov, the agent, for many years a correspondent of the Son of the Fatherland newspaper.  They walked in silence, speechless from the heat.  Optimov felt tempted to find fault with the local authorities for the dust and disorder of the market-place, but, aware of the peace-loving disposition and moderate views of his companion, he said nothing.

In the middle of the market-place Potcheshihin suddenly halted and began gazing into the sky.

“What are you looking at?”

“Those starlings that flew up.  I wonder where they have settled.  Clouds and clouds of them. . . .  If one were to go and take a shot at them, and if one were to pick them up . . . and if . . .  They have settled in the Father Prebendary’s garden!”

“Oh no!  They are not in the Father Prebendary’s, they are in the Father Deacon’s.  If you did have a shot at them from here you wouldn’t kill anything.  Fine shot won’t carry so far; it loses its force.  And why should you kill them, anyway?  They’re birds destructive of the fruit, that’s true; still, they’re fowls of the air, works of the Lord.  The starling sings, you know. . . .  And what does it sing, pray?  A song of praise. . . .  ’All ye fowls of the air, praise ye the Lord.’  No.  I do believe they have settled in the Father Prebendary’s garden.”

Three old pilgrim women, wearing bark shoes and carrying wallets, passed noiselessly by the speakers.  Looking enquiringly at the gentlemen who were for some unknown reason staring at the Father Prebendary’s house, they slackened their pace, and when they were a few yards off stopped, glanced at the friends once more, and then fell to gazing at the house themselves.

“Yes, you were right; they have settled in the Father Prebendary’s,” said Optimov.  “His cherries are ripe now, so they have gone there to peck them.”