That was all he said, but it was enough, wasn't it, my dear,--quite enough to say? I turned livid, and grew as cold as ice, and lost my senses; I started, and I simply didn't know whether I was alive or dead as I went. They led me through one room, and through another room, and through a third room, to the private office, and I presented myself! Positively, I cannot give you any account of what I was thinking about. I saw his Excellency standing there, with all of them around him. It appears that I did not make my salute; I forgot it completely. I was so scared that my lips trembled and my legs shook. And there was sufficient cause, my dear. In the first place, I was ashamed of myself; I glanced to the right, at a mirror, and what I beheld therein was enough to drive any man out of his senses. And in the second place, I have always behaved as though there were no place for me in the world. So that it is not likely that his Excellency was even aware of my existence. It is possible that he may have heard it cursorily mentioned that there was a person named Dyevushkin in the department, but he had never come into any closer relations. He began angrily, "What's the meaning of this, sir? What are you staring at? Here's an important paper, needed in haste, and you go and spoil it. And how did you come to permit such a thing?" Here his Excellency turned on Evstafiy Ivanovitch. I only listen, and the sounds of the words reach me: "It's gross carelessness. Heedlessness! You'll get yourself into trouble!" I tried to open my mouth for some purpose or other. I seemed to want to ask forgiveness, but I couldn't; to run away, but I didn't dare to make the attempt: and then--then, my dearest, something so dreadful happened that I can hardly hold my pen even now for the shame of it. My button--deuce take it--my button, which was hanging by a thread, suddenly broke loose, jumped off, skipped along (evidently I had struck it by accident), clattered and rolled away, the cursed thing, straight to his Excellency's feet, and that in the midst of universal silence. And that was the whole of my justification, all my excuse, all my answer, everything which I was preparing to say to his Excellency!