_ VII
IVAN MIRONOV had to spend the night in the police-station, in the company
of drunkards and thieves. It was noon of the next day when he was
summoned to the police officer; put through a close examination,
and sent in the care of a policeman to Eugene Mihailovich's shop.
Ivan Mironov remembered the street and the house.
The policeman asked for the shopkeeper, showed him the coupon
and confronted him with Ivan Mironov, who declared that he had
received the coupon in that very place. Eugene Mihailovich
at once assumed a very severe and astonished air.
"You are mad, my good fellow," he said. "I have never seen this
man before in my life," he added, addressing the policeman.
"It is a sin, sir," said Ivan Mironov." Think of the hour
when you will die."
"Why, you must be dreaming I You have sold your firewood to some
one else," said Eugene Mihailovich. "But wait a minute. I will go
and ask my wife whether she bought any firewood yesterday." Eugene
Mihailovich left them and immediately called the yard-porter Vassily,
a strong, handsome, quick, cheerful, well-dressed man.
He told Vassily that if any one should inquire where the last supply
of firewood was bought, he was to say they'd got it from the stores,
and not from a peasant in the street.
"A peasant has come," he said to Vassily, "who has
declared to the police that I gave him a forged coupon.
He is a fool and talks nonsense, but you, are a clever man.
Mind you say that we always get the firewood from the stores.
And, by the way, I've been thinking some time of giving
you money to buy a new jacket," added Eugene Mihailovich,
and gave the man five roubles. Vassily looking with pleasure
first at the five rouble note, then at Eugene Mihailovich's face,
shook his head and smiled.
"I know, those peasant folks have no brains. Ignorance, of course.
Don't you be uneasy. I know what I have to say."
Ivan Mironov, with tears in his eyes, implored Eugene Mihailovich
over and over again to acknowledge the coupon he had given him,
and the yard-porter to believe what he said, but it proved quite useless;
they both insisted that they had never bought firewood from a
peasant in the street. The policeman brought Ivan Mironov back
to the police-station, and he was charged with forging the coupon.
Only after taking the advice of a drunken office clerk in the same
cell with him, and bribing the police officer with five roubles,
did Ivan Mironov get out of jail, without the coupon, and with only
seven roubles left out of the twenty-five he had the day before.
Of these seven roubles he spent three in the public-house and came
home to his wife dead drunk, with a bruised and swollen face.
His wife was expecting a child, and felt very ill. She began
to scold her husband; he pushed her away, and she struck him.
Without answering a word he lay down on the plank and began
to weep bitterly.
Not till the next day did he tell his wife what had actually happened.
She believed him at once, and thoroughly cursed the dastardly rich man
who had cheated Ivan. He was sobered now, and remembering the advice
a workman had given him, with whom he had many a drink the day before,
decided to go to a lawyer and tell him of the wrong the owner of the
photograph shop had done him. _