Zakhár went out, and Ílya Ílyitch lay down on the bed again and began to cogitate upon that cursed letter. A quarter of an hour elapsed. "There now," he exclaimed, "I have dallied long enough; I must get up. However, I must read the stárosta's letter over again more attentively, and then I will get up—Zakhár!" The same noise of leaping down from the stove, and the same growling of the dog, only more emphatic. Zakhár made his appearance, but again Oblómof was sunk deep in contemplation. Zakhár stood a few moments, looking sulkily and askance at his master, and finally he turned to go. "Where are you going?" suddenly demanded Oblómof. "You have nothing to say to me, and why should I waste my time standing here?" explained Zakhár, in a hoarse gasp which served him in lieu of a voice, he having lost his voice, according to his own account, while out hunting with the dogs when he had to accompany his former master, and when a powerful wind seemed to blow in his throat. He half turned round, and stood in the middle of the room and glared at his master.[Pg 6542] "Have your legs quite given out, that you can't stand a minute? Don't you see I am worried? Now, please wait a moment! wasn't it lying there just now? Get me that letter which I received last evening from the stárosta. What did you do with it?" "What letter? I haven't seen any letter," replied Zakhár. "Why, you yourself took it from the postman, you scoundrel!" "It is where you put it; how should I know anything about it?" said Zakhár, beginning to rummage about among the papers and various things that littered the table. "You never know anything at all. There, look on the basket. No, see if it hasn't been thrown on the sofa.—There, the back of that sofa hasn't been mended yet. Why have you not got the carpenter to mend it? 'Twas you who broke it. You never think of anything!" "I didn't break it," retorted Zakhár; "it broke itself; it was not meant to last forever; it had to break some time." Ílya Ílyitch did not consider it necessary to refute this argument. He contented himself with asking:— "Have you found it yet?" "Here are some letters." "But they are not the right ones." "Well, there's nothing else," said Zakhár. "Very good, be gone," said Ílya Ílyitch impatiently. "I am going to get up. I will find it." Zakhár went to his room, but he had hardly laid his hand on his couch to climb up to it before the imperative cry was heard again:— "Zakhár! Zakhár!" "Oh, good Lord!" grumbled he, as he started to go for the third time to Oblómof's library. "What a torment all this is! Oh that death would come and take me from it!"