pushed him down, and I too shut him up.” Well, of course, all the judges then, and the lawyers and the police ... fell on him directly ... fell on him and never let him go ... I can assure you ... till the last farthing was out of his purse. They’d leave him in peace for a while, and then attack him again. Down to the very time when the French came into Russia they were worrying at him, and only dropped him then. Well, he managed to provide for Agrafena Ivanovna--to be sure, he saved her--that one must say. Well, and afterwards, up to her death, indeed, he lived with her, and they do say she led him a pretty dance--the brigadier, that is; sent him on foot from Moscow into the country--by God, she did--to get her rents in, I suppose. It was on her account, on account of this same Agrafena Ivanovna--he fought a duel with the English milord Hugh Hughes; and the English milord was forced to make a formal apology too. But later on the brigadier went down hill more and more.... Well, and now he can’t be reckoned a man at all.’ ‘Who was that Alexey Ivanitch the Jew,’ I asked, ‘through whom he was brought to ruin?’ ‘Oh, the brother of Agrafena Ivanovna. A grasping creature, Jewish indeed. He lent his sister money at interest, and Vassily Fomitch was her security. He had to pay for it too ... pretty heavily!’ ‘And Fedulia Ivanovna the plunderer--who was she?’ ‘Her sister too ... and a sharp one too, as sharp as a lance. A terrible woman!’ XIV ‘What a place to find a Werter!’ I thought next day, as I set off again towards the brigadier’s dwelling. I was at that time very young, and that was possibly why I thought it my duty not to believe in the lasting nature of love. Still, I was impressed and somewhat puzzled by the story I had heard, and felt an intense desire to stir up the old man, to make him talk freely. ‘I’ll first refer to Suvorov again,’ so I resolved within myself; ‘there must be some spark of his former fire hidden within him still ... and then, when he’s warmed up, I’ll turn the conversation on that ... what’s her name? ... Agrafena Ivanovna. A queer name for a “Charlotte”--Agrafena!’ I found my Werter-Guskov in the middle of a tiny kitchen-garden, a few steps from the lodge, near the old framework of a never-finished hut, overgrown with nettles. On the mildewed upper beams of this skeleton hut some miserable-looking turkey poults were scrambling, incessantly slipping and flapping their wings and cackling. There was some poor sort of green stuff growing in two or three borders. The brigadier had just pulled a young carrot out of the ground, and rubbing it under his arm ‘to clean it,’ proceeded to chew its thin tail.... I bowed to him, and inquired after his health. He obviously did not recognise me, though he returned my greeting--that is to say, touched his cap with his hand, though without leaving off munching the carrot. ‘You didn’t go fishing to-day?’ I began, in the hope of recalling myself to his memory by this question.