Then Ivan Ivanovich set down his cup, and drew from his pocket a sheet of stamped paper, written over. “A complaint against my enemy, my sworn enemy.”

“And who is that?”

“Ivan Nikiforovich Dovgochkhun.”

At these words, the judge nearly fell off his chair. “What do you say?” he exclaimed, clasping his hands: “Ivan Ivanovich, is this you?”

“You see yourself, that it is I.”

“The Lord and all the saints be with you! What! You! Ivan Ivanovich! you have fallen out with Ivan Nikiforovich! Is it your mouth which says that? Repeat it! Is not some one hid behind you, who is speaking instead of you?”

“What is there incredible about it? I can’t endure the sight of him: he has done me a deadly injury—he has insulted my honor.”

“Holy Trinity! How am I to believe my mother now? Why, every day, when I quarrel with my sister, the old woman says, ‘Children, you live together like dogs. If you would only take pattern by Ivan Ivanovich and Ivan Nikiforovich, they are friends indeed! such friends! such worthy people!’ There you are with your friend! Tell me what this is about. How is it?”

“It is a delicate business, Demyan Demyanovich; it is impossible to relate it in words: be pleased rather to read my petition. Here, take it by this side: it is more convenient.”

“Read it, Taras Tikhonovich,” said the judge, turning to the secretary. Taras Tikhonovich took the petition; and blowing his nose, as all district judges’ secretaries blow their noses, with the assistance of two fingers, he began to read:

“From the nobleman and landed proprietor of the Mirgorod District, Ivan Pererépenko, son of Ivan, a petition: concerning which the following points are to be observed:

“1. Ivan Dovgochkhun, son of Nikifor, nobleman, known to all the world for his godless acts, which inspire disgust, and in lawlessness exceed all bounds, on the seventh day of July of this year 1810, conferred upon me a deadly insult, as touching my personal honor, and likewise as tending to the humiliation and confusion of my rank and family. The said nobleman, of repulsive aspect, has also a pugnacious disposition, and is full to overflowing of various sorts of blasphemy and quarrelsome words.”…

Here the reader paused for an instant, to blow his nose again; but the judge folded his hands in approbation, and murmured to himself, “What a ready pen! Lord! how that man does write!”

Ivan Ivanovich requested that the reading might proceed, and Taras Tikhonovich went on:

“The said Ivan Dovgochkhun, son of Nikifor, when I went to him with a friendly proposition, called me publicly by an epithet insulting and injurious to my honor, namely, a goose, whereas it is known to the whole district of Mirgorod, that I never was named after that disgusting animal, and have no intention of ever being named after it. And the proof of my noble extraction is, that, in the baptismal register to be found in the Church of the Three Bishops, the day of my birth, and likewise the fact of my baptism, are inscribed. But a goose, as is well known to every one who has any knowledge of science, cannot be inscribed in the baptismal register; for a goose is not a man, but a fowl; which, likewise, is sufficiently well known, even to persons who have not been to a seminary. But the said evil-minded nobleman, being privy to all these facts, for no other purpose than to offer a deadly insult to my rank and calling, affronted me with the aforesaid foul word.