him was, "Here's a pretty pass! to be sure, to be sure, to be sure!" As
a preliminary measure of security, to provide against contingencies,
they locked Kapiton up in the lumber-room where the filter was kept;
then considered the question with the gravest deliberation. It would, to
be sure, be easy to have recourse to force. But Heaven save us! There
would be an uproar, the mistress would be put out--it would be awful!
What should they do? They thought and thought, and at last thought out a
solution. It had many a time been observed that Gerasim could not bear
drunkards. . . . As he sat at the gates, he would always turn away with
disgust when some one passed by intoxicated, with unsteady steps and his
cap on one side of his ear. They resolved that Tatiana should be
instructed to pretend to be tipsy, and should pass by Gerasim staggering
and reeling about. The poor girl refused for a long while to agree to
this, but they persuaded her at last; she saw, too, that it was the only
possible way of getting rid of her adorer. She went out. Kapiton was
released from the lumber-room; for, after all, he had an interest in the
affair. Gerasim was sitting on the curbstone at the gates, scraping the
ground with a spade. . . . From behind every corner, from behind every
window-blind, the others were watching him. . . . The trick succeeded
beyond all expectations. On seeing Tatiana, at first, he nodded as usual,
making caressing, inarticulate sounds; then he looked carefully at her,
dropped his spade, jumped up, went up to her, brought his face close to
her face. . . . In her fright she staggered more than ever, and shut her
eyes. . . . He took her by the arm, whirled her right across the yard, and
going into the room where the council had been sitting, pushed her
straight at Kapiton. Tatiana fairly swooned away. . . . Gerasim stood,
looked at her, waved his hand, laughed, and went off, stepping heavily,
to his garret. . . . For the next twenty-four hours he did not come out of
it. The postilion Antipka said afterwards that he saw Gerasim through a
crack in the wall, sitting on his bedstead, his face in his hand. From