This is what has happened! I will relate it to you without attempting fine style, and as the Lord shall put it into my soul. I went to the office to-day. When I arrived, I sat down and began to write. But you must know, my dear, that I wrote yesterday also. Well, yesterday Timofei Ivan'itch came to me, and was pleased to give me a personal order. "Here's a document that is much needed," says he, "and we're in a hurry for it. Copy it, Makar Alexievitch," says he, "as quickly and as neatly and carefully as possible: it must be handed in for signature to-day." I must explain to you, my angel, that I was not quite myself yesterday, and didn't wish to look at anything; such sadness and depression had fallen upon me! My heart was cold, my mind was dark; you filled all my memory, and incessantly, my poor darling. Well, so I set to work on the copy; I wrote clearly and well, only,--I don't know exactly how to describe it to you, whether the Evil One himself tangled me up, or whether it was decreed by some mysterious fate, or simply whether it was bound to happen so, but I omitted a whole line, and the sense was utterly ruined. The Lord only knows what sense there was--simply none whatever. They were late with the papers yesterday, so they only gave this document to his Excellency for signature this morning. To-day I presented myself at the usual hour, as though nothing at all were the matter, and set myself down alongside Emelyan Ivanovitch. I must tell you, my dear, that lately I have become twice as shamefaced as before, and more mortified. Of late I have ceased to look at any one. As soon as any one's chair squeaks, I am more dead than alive. So to-day I crept in, slipped humbly into my seat, and sat there all doubled up, so that Efim Akimovitch (he's the greatest tease in the world) remarked in such a way that all could hear him, "Why do you sit so like a y-y-y, Makar Alexievitch?" Then he made such a grimace that everybody round him and me split with laughter, and of course at my expense. They kept it up interminably! I drooped my ears and screwed up my eyes, and sat there motionless. That's my way; they stop the quicker. All at once I heard a noise, a running and a tumult; I heard--did my ears deceive me? They were calling for me, demanding me, summoning Dyevushkin. My heart quivered in my breast, and I didn't know myself what I feared, for nothing of the sort had ever happened to me in the whole course of my life. I was rooted to my chair,--as though nothing had occurred, as though it were not I. But then they began again, nearer at hand, and nearer still. And here they were, right in my very ear: "Dyevushkin! Dyevushkin!" they called; "where's Dyevushkin?" I raise my eyes, and there before me stands Evstafiy Ivanovitch; he says:--"Makar Alexievitch, hasten to his Excellency as quickly as possible! You've made a nice mess with that document!"