No one else was expected. The dining-room table was being set for supper. Suddenly there was a loud, violent bell-ring. The housemaid ran quickly to answer it. Some one in the drawing-room remarked in astonishment:

“A rather late visitor.”

Every one suddenly felt depressed for some reason. There was an air of ominous expectancy. Were robbers about to break in? Was it a telegram containing an unpleasant announcement? Or would some one come in panting and exhausted and divulge a piece of terrible news? But the words they addressed to each other were of quite a different nature.

“But who can it be at such a late hour?” said one woman to another.

“Who else can it be but Piotr Ivanitch!”

“That’s so; he likes coming late.”

“Do you remember—once at the Taranovs?”

Piotr Ivanitch, approaching at that moment, overheard the remark.

“You are unfair to me, Marya Ivanovna! I’ve been here a long time,” said he.

“Forgive me, but who, then, can it be?” said Marya Ivanovna in confusion.

“We’ll soon know. Let’s take a look.”

The inquisitive engineer put his head out into the hall and stumbled upon some one in a grey uniform who was walking impetuously towards the drawing-room. Some one whispered in suppressed horror:

“The police!”

When the maid, in response to the ring, opened the door, several men filed into the hall, awkwardly jostling one another—house-porters,23 gendarmes, detectives, an Inspector of the police, an officer of the gendarmerie, two petty constables. The maid stood speechless with fright. The police inspector shouted at her:

“Get back to the kitchen!”

A detachment of policemen and porters remained outside under the command of the Inspector of the constabulary. They watched to see that no one entered or left the Svetilovitch house.

Altogether about twenty policemen entered the house. For some unknown reason they were armed with rifles with fixed bayonets. Three hideous-looking men in civilian clothes kept close to the policemen. These were the detectives. Two policemen stationed themselves at the entrance, two others ran to the telephone, which was attached to a wall in the hall. It was evident that everything had been arranged beforehand by a manager expert in such matters. The rest of the men tumbled into the drawing-room. The Inspector of the police stretched his neck and, assuming a tense red expression and bulging his eyes, shouted very loudly.

“Don’t any one dare to move from his place!”

And he looked round in self-satisfaction at the officer of the gendarmerie.

The men and the women remained transfixed in their places, as if they were acting a tableau. They were looking silently at the new-comers.

The policemen, awkwardly holding their rifles, tramped with their ponderous boots on the parquet-floor and made their way about the rooms. They paused at all the doors, looked at the visitors timorously and savagely, uneasily pressed the barrels of their rifles, and tried to look like real soldiers. It was evident that these zealous people were ready to fire at any one whomsoever at the first suspicious movement: they thought that a band of conspirators had gathered here.

All the rooms were overrun with these strangers. It began to smell of bad tobacco, sweat, and vodka. Many of them drank to keep their courage up: they were afraid of a possible armed resistance.

A gendarme placed his Colonel’s voluminous portfolio on the grand piano in the drawing-room. The Colonel, stepping forward to the middle of the room, so that the light of the centre cluster of lamps fell almost directly upon his bald forehead and upon his bushy, sandy-haired moustache, pronounced in an official tone:

“Where’s the master of this house?”

He made a determined effort to give the impression that he did not know Doctor Svetilovitch or the others. Actually he knew nearly all of them personally. Doctor Svetilovitch walked up to him.

“I am the master of this house. I am Doctor Svetilovitch,” he said in a no less official tone.

The Colonel in the blue uniform then announced:

“M. Svetilovitch, it is my duty to make a search of your house.”

Doctor Svetilovitch asked:

“Under whose authority are you doing this? And where is your warrant for carrying out the search?”

The Colonel of the gendarmerie turned towards the piano and rummaged in his portfolio, but produced nothing. He said:

“I assure you I have an order. If you have any doubts you can call up on the telephone.”

Then the Colonel turned to the Inspector of the police and said:

“Please collect them all in one room.”

All, except Doctor Svetilovitch, were compelled to go into the dining-room, which now became crowded and uncomfortable. Armed constables were placed at both doors—the one entering the hall and the other the dining-room—as well as in all the corners. Their faces were dull, and their guns seemed unnecessary and absurd in these peaceful surroundings—but then the guests felt even more uncomfortable.

A detective looked out from time to time from the drawing-room door. He looked searchingly into the faces. The look he had on his disagreeable face with its white eyebrows and eyelashes gave the impression that he was sniffing the air.

In the drawing-room the Colonel of the gendarmerie was saying to Doctor Svetilovitch:

“And now, M. Svetilovitch, will you be so good as to tell me with what object you have arranged this gathering?”

Doctor Svetilovitch replied with an ironic smile:

“With the object of dancing and dining, nothing more. You can see for yourself that we are all peaceable folk.”

“Very well,” said the Colonel in an authoritative, rude tone. “Are the names and families of all gathered here with the object you state known to you?”

Doctor Svetilovitch shrugged his shoulders in astonishment and replied:

“Of course they are known to me! Why shouldn’t I know my own guests? I believe you know many of them yourself.”

“Be so good,” requested the Colonel, “as to give me the names of all your guests.”

He produced a sheet of paper from his portfolio and placed it on the piano. The Colonel wrote the names down as Doctor Svetilovitch gave them. When the doctor stopped short the Colonel asked laconically:

“All?”

“Doctor Svetilovitch answered as briefly:

“All.”

“Show us into your study,” said the Colonel.

They went into the study and rummaged among everything there. They turned over all the books and disarranged the writing-table. They looked through the letters. The Colonel demanded:

“Open the bookcases, the bureau drawers.”

Doctor Svetilovitch answered: “The keys, as you see, are in their places in the locks.”

He put his hands into his pockets and stood by the window.

“Will you be good enough to open them?” said the Colonel.

“I can’t do this,” replied Doctor Svetilovitch. “I do not consider it obligatory to help you in your searches.”

Pride filled his Cadet’s soul. He felt that he was behaving correctly and valiantly. What was the consequence? The uninvited guests opened everything themselves and rummaged where they pleased. A constable put aside all those books which looked suspicious. Several of these books had been published in Russia quite openly and sold no less openly. They took several books wholly innocent in their contents, simply because they thought they detected a rebellious note in their titles.

The Colonel of the gendarmerie announced:

“We will take the correspondence and the manuscripts with us.”

Doctor Svetilovitch said in vexation:

“I assure you there’s nothing criminal there. The manuscripts are very necessary to my work.”

“We’ll have a look at them,” said the Colonel dryly. “Don’t be concerned about them, they will be kept in safety.”

Then they rummaged the other rooms. They searched the beds to see if there were any concealed fire-arms.

When he returned into the study the Colonel of the gendarmerie said to Doctor Svetilovitch:

“Well, try and see if you can find the papers of the strike committee.”

“I have no such papers,” replied Doctor Svetilovitch.

“S-so! Now,” said the Colonel very significantly, “tell us frankly where you keep the weapons concealed.”

“What weapons?” asked Doctor Svetilovitch in astonishment.

The Colonel replied with an ironic smile:

“Any sort that you may have about—revolvers, bombs, or machine-guns.”

“I haven’t any kind of weapons,” said Doctor Svetilovitch with an amused laugh. “I haven’t even a gun for hunting. What kind of weapon can I possibly have?”

“We’ll have a look!” said the Colonel in a meaningful voice.

They turned the whole house upside down. Of course they found no weapons of any kind.

While all this was going on Trirodov was reading in the dining-room his own verses and some which were not his. The constables listened in a dull way. They did not understand anything, but waited patiently to see if any rebellious words were mentioned, but their waiting remained unrewarded.

The Inspector of the police then entered the dining-room. Every one looked guardedly at him. He said solemnly, as if he were announcing the beginning of an important and useful work:

“Gentlemen, now we must subject all those present to a personal examination. One at a time, please. Suppose we begin with you,” said he, turning to the engineer.

The face of the Inspector of the police expressed a consciousness of his personal dignity. His movements were sure and significant. It was evident that he not only was not ashamed of what he was saying and doing, but that he had not the slightest comprehension that there was anything in this to be ashamed of. The engineer, a young and handsome man, shrugged his shoulders, smiled contemptuously and went into the study, being directed there by an awkward motion of the red-palmed paw of the Commissary of the rural police.

The priest’s wife found herself an arm-chair in the dining-room, but she was not any more comfortable in it. Terrified in her arm-chair, she trembled like jelly. With pale lips she whispered to the parish-school girl she had won over to the cause:

“Irinushka, dearest, think of it—they are going to search us!”

The parish-school girl, Irinushka, looking slender, fresh, and red, like a newly washed carrot, moved her ears in her fright—a faculty which her companions envied her intensely—and whispered something to the priest’s wife.

The constable looked savagely at the priest’s wife and at the parish-school girl, and cried out in a shrill, somewhat hoarse voice, which resembled the crowing of a cock:

“I must very humbly ask you not to whisper.”

The constables with the guns pricked up their ears. Their sudden zeal made them perspire. The priest’s wife and the parish-school girl almost fainted from fright, but the girl at once recovered herself and began to get angry; she was now even more angry than she had been frightened a little while ago. Small tears gleamed in her eyes; small drops of perspiration appeared on her cheeks and on her forehead. The angry girl’s face grew even redder, so that now she resembled no longer a carrot but a wet beetroot. The only person in the room to be refreshingly and youthfully indignant, and all aflame with a deep anger, she looked truly beautiful in her ingenuous exasperation.

“Here is something new!” she cried. “Whispering is forbidden! Are you afraid that we will say something against you, that we will hurt you?”

At this moment all the Cadets and their wives and daughters, who were sitting around the table and against the walls, turned their horrified faces at the parish-school girl, and all together hissed at her. They would have laid hands on her, some one would have gagged her mouth—but not one of them dared to make a move. They sat motionless, looked at the parish-school girl with eyes dilated with fear, and hissed.

The parish-school girl, overcome with fright, grew silent. Only the hissing could be heard in the dining-room. Even the constables began to smile at the friendly hissing of the Cadets of both sexes.

When they had finished hissing, Irinushka said almost tranquilly:

“We didn’t whisper anything criminal. I only said about you, Mr. Constable, that you were fascinatingly handsome with your dark hair.”

When she saw that the Rameyev sisters were laughing, Irinushka turned to Elisaveta:

“You do agree with me, Vetochka, that the constable is a fascinatingly handsome man?”

The constable flushed. He was not sure whether the blushing girl was laughing at him or in earnest. In any case he frowned, vigorously twirled his dark moustache, and exclaimed:

“I must humbly ask you not to express yourself.”

Later, at home, Irinushka was scolded for her behaviour, regarded as untactful by Priest Zakrasin. The priest’s wife was especially angry. Poor Irinushka even cried several times.

But this was later. At this particular instant the Inspector of the police and the Colonel of the gendarmerie were sitting in Doctor Svetilovitch’s study and were examining the guests one by one; they turned their pockets inside out and, for some unknown reason, deprived their owners of letters, notes, and notebooks.

Rameyev was in a quiet, genial mood. He laughed on being searched. Trirodov made an effort to be calm and was a little sharper than he wished to be.

The women were searched in one of the bedrooms. A police-matron was brought for this purpose. She was a dirty, cunning sycophant. The contact of her coarse hands was repulsive. Elisaveta felt uncomfortably unclean after she had passed through the policewoman’s paws. Elena shivered with fear and nausea.

Those who had been searched were not permitted to enter the dining-room but were led into the drawing-room. Nearly all the searched ones were proud of this. They looked as if they were celebrating a birthday.

No one was arrested. They began to draw up the official report. Trirodov quietly addressed a gendarme, but the latter replied in a whisper:

“We are not permitted to enter into conversation with any one. Those scoundrelly spies are watching us, so that we shouldn’t speak with liberals. They are quick to inform against us.”

“You are in an unfortunate business,” said Trirodov.

The Inspector of the police read the official report aloud. It was signed by Doctor Svetilovitch, the Inspector, and the witnesses.

When the uninvited guests left, the hosts and the invited guests sat down to supper.

It was presently discovered that the beer prepared for the occasion had been consumed. At the same time the cap of one of the guests had disappeared. Its owner was very much disturbed. The cap became almost the sole topic of conversation.

On the next day there was much talk in town about the search at the Svetilovitches, the consumed beer, and especially about the lost cap.

Not a little was said in the newspapers about the beer and the cap. One newspaper in St. Petersburg devoted a very heated article to the stolen cap. The author of the article made very broad generalizations. He asked:

“Is it not one of those caps with which we were preparing to throw back the foreign enemy? Is not all Russia seeking now its lost cap and cannot be consoled?"24

Much less was said and written about the consumed beer. For some reason or other it did not offend people so much. In accordance with our general custom of placing substance above the form, it was found that the stealing of the cap deserved the greater protest, inasmuch as it is more difficult to get along without a cap than without beer.