Troubled times followed for Panteley Eremyitch. Peace was just the last thing he enjoyed. He had some happy days, it is true; the doubt stirring within him would seem to him all nonsense; he would drive away the ridiculous idea, like a persistent fly, and even laugh at himself; but he had bad days too: the importunate thought began again stealthily gnawing and tearing at his heart, like a mouse under the floor, and he existed in secret torture. On the memorable day when he found Malek-Adel, Tchertop-hanov had felt nothing but rapturous bliss... but the next morning, when, in a low-pitched shed of the inn, he began saddling his recovered joy, beside whom he had spent the whole night, he felt for the first time a certain secret pang.... He only shook his head, but the seed was sown. During the homeward journey (it lasted a whole week) doubts seldom arose in him; they grew stronger and more distinct directly he was back at Bezsonovo, directly he was home again in the place where the old authentic Malek-Adel had lived.... On the road home he had ridden at a quiet, swinging pace, looking in all directions, smoking a short pipe, and not reflecting at all, except at times the thought struck him: 'When the Tchertop-hanovs want a thing, they get it, you bet!' and he smiled to himself; but on his return home it was a very different state of things. All this, however, he kept to himself; vanity alone would have prevented him from giving utterance to his inner dread. He would have torn anyone to pieces who had dropped the most distant hint that the new Malek-Adel was possibly not the old one; he accepted congratulations on his 'successful recovery of his horse,' from the few persons whom he happened to meet; but he did not seek such congratulations; he avoided all contact with people more than ever--a bad sign! He was almost always putting Malek-Adel through examinations, if one may use the expression; he would ride him out to some point at a little distance in the open country, and put him to the proof, or would go stealthily into the stable, lock the door after him, and standing right before the horse's head, look into his eyes, and ask him in a whisper, 'Is it you? Is it you? You?'... or else stare at him silently and intently for hours together, and then mutter, brightening up: 'Yes! it's he! Of course it's he!' or else go out with a puzzled, even confused look on his face. Tchertop-hanov was not so much confused by the physical differences between _this_ Malek-Adel and _that_ one... though there were a few such differences: _that_ one's tail and mane were a little thinner, and his ears more pointed, and his pasterns shorter, and his eyes brighter--but all that might be only fancy; what confounded Tchertop-hanov most were, so to say, the moral differences. The habits of _that_ one had been different: all his ways were not the same. For instance, _that_ Malek-Adel had looked round and given a faint neigh every time Tchertop-hanov went into the