In dumb stupefaction, understanding nothing, hearing nothing, Navagin
paced about his study. He touched the curtain over the door, three
times waved his hands like a _jeune premier_ in a ballet when he
sees _her_, gave a whistle and a meaningless smile, and pointed
with his finger into space.

"So I will send off the article at once, your Excellency," said the
secretary.

These words roused Navagin from his stupour. He looked blankly at
the secretary and the sacristan, remembered, and stamping, his foot
irritably, screamed in a high, breaking tenor:

"Leave me in peace! Lea-eave me in peace, I tell you! What you want
of me I don't understand."

The secretary and the sacristan went out of the study and reached
the street while he was still stamping and shouting:

"Leave me in peace! What you want of me I don't understand. Lea-eave
me in peace!"


STRONG IMPRESSIONS

IT happened not so long ago in the Moscow circuit court. The jurymen,
left in the court for the night, before lying down to sleep fell
into conversation about strong impressions. They were led to this
discussion by recalling a witness who, by his own account, had begun
to stammer and had gone grey owing to a terrible moment. The jurymen