“‘Waiter! my hat and stick,’ said the Counsellor, pale as death, and his voice escaped in mournful tones from his hollow chest. ‘The devil is in my house and seeks my soul; a pleasant evening to you, gentlemen,’ added he, turning to us with a polite bow, and thereupon left the room. “‘What does this mean?’ we asked each other; ‘are we all beside ourselves?’ “The gentleman in the morning-gown kept looking quietly out of the window, while our good silly old friend crossed the street at his usual formal pace. At the front-door, he pulled a huge bunch of keys out of his pocket, unlocked the heavy creaking door--he of the morning-gown looking carelessly on, and walked in. “The latter now withdrew from the window, and we saw him go forward to meet our acquaintance at the room-door. “Our host and the ten waiters were all pale with fear, and trembled. ‘Gentlemen,’ said the former, ‘God pity poor Hasentreffer, for one of those two must be the devil in human shape.’ We laughed at our host, and tried to persuade ourselves that it was a joke of Barighi’s; but our host assured us that no one could have obtained access to the house except he was in possession of the Counsellor’s very artificially contrived keys; also, that Barighi was seated at table not ten minutes before the prodigy happened; how then could he have disguised himself so completely in so short a time, even supposing him to have known how to unlock a strange house? He added, that the two were so fearfully like one another, that he who had lived in the neighbourhood for twenty years could not distinguish the true one from the counterfeit. ‘But, for God’s sake, gentlemen, do you not hear the horrid shrieks opposite?’ “We rushed to the window--terrible and fearful voices rang across from the empty house; we fancied we saw the old Counsellor, pursued by his image in the morning-gown, hurry past the window repeatedly. On a sudden all was quiet. “We gazed on each other; the boldest among us proposed to cross over to the house--we all agreed to it. We crossed the street--the huge bell at the old man’s door was rung thrice, but nothing could be heard in answer; we sent to the police and to a blacksmith’s--the door was broken open, the whole tide of anxious visitors poured up the wide silent staircase--all the doors were fastened; at length one was opened. In a splendid apartment, the Counsellor, his iron-grey frock-coat torn to pieces, his neatly dressed hair in horrible disorder, lay dead, strangled, on the sofa. “Since that time no traces of Barighi have been found, neither in Stuttgart nor elsewhere.” ST. JOHN’S EVE[3] BY NIKOLÁI VASILÉVICH GÓGOL [3] From _St. John’s Eve and Other Stories_, translated by Isabel F. Hapgood from the Russian of N. V. Gógol. (Copyright, 1886, by Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. By permission of the Publishers.)