“What things do happen!” continued the judge. He had not finished saying this before the door creaked and the front half of Ivan Nikiforovitch presented itself in the court-room; the rest of him remaining in the ante-room. The appearance of Ivan Nikiforovitch, and in court too, seemed so extraordinary that the judge screamed; the secretary stopped reading; one clerk, in his frieze imitation of a dress-coat, took his pen in his lips; and the other swallowed a fly. Even the constable on duty and the watchman, a discharged soldier who up to that moment had stood by the door scratching about his dirty tunic, with chevrons on its arm, dropped his jaw and trod on some one’s foot. “What chance brings you here? How is your health, Ivan Nikiforovitch?” But Ivan Nikiforovitch was neither dead nor alive; for he was stuck fast in the door, and could not take a step either forwards or backwards. In vain did the judge shout into the ante-room that some one there should push Ivan Nikiforovitch forward into the court-room. In the ante-room there was only one old woman with a petition, who, in spite of all the efforts of her bony hands, could accomplish nothing. Then one of the clerks, with thick lips, a thick nose, eyes which looked askance and intoxicated, broad shoulders, and ragged elbows, approached the front half of Ivan Nikiforovitch, crossed his hands for him as though he had been a child, and winked at the old soldier, who braced his knee against Ivan Nikiforovitch’s belly, so, in spite of the latter’s piteous moans, he was squeezed out into the ante-room. Then they pulled the bolts, and opened the other half of the door. Meanwhile the clerk and his assistant, breathing hard with their friendly exertions, exhaled such a strong odour that the court-room seemed temporarily turned into a drinking-room. “Are you hurt, Ivan Nikiforovitch? I will tell my mother to send you a decoction of brandy, with which you need but to rub your back and stomach and all your pains will disappear.” But Ivan Nikiforovitch dropped into a chair, and could utter no word beyond prolonged oh’s. Finally, in a faint and barely audible voice from fatigue, he exclaimed, “Wouldn’t you like some?” and drawing his snuff-box from his pocket, added, “Help yourself, if you please.” “Very glad to see you,” replied the judge; “but I cannot conceive what made you put yourself to so much trouble, and favour us with so unexpected an honour.” “A plaint!” Ivan Nikiforovitch managed to ejaculate. “A plaint? What plaint?” “A complaint...” here his asthma entailed a prolonged pause--“Oh! a complaint against that rascal--Ivan Ivanovitch Pererepenko!” “And you too! Such particular friends! A complaint against such a benevolent man?” “He’s Satan himself!” ejaculated Ivan Nikiforovitch abruptly. The judge crossed himself. “Take my plaint, and read it.”