all carried on with clean hands, in clean shirts, with French words, and, the main thing, in the very highest society, consequently with the sanction of persons of the highest rank.
This was the course of Ivan Il'ich's life for five years, and then there was a change in the service. New judicial departments appeared, and new men were required to fill them.
And Ivan Il'ich became one of these new men.
The post of investigating magistrate was offered to Ivan Il'ich, and Ivan Il'ich accepted it, notwithstanding the fact that this place was in another Government, and he would have to break off his existing relations and establish new ones. Ivan Il'ich's friends showed their appreciation of him; they laid their heads together, presented him with a silver cigarette holder, and off he went to his new appointment.
As an investigating magistrate, Ivan Il'ich was just as comme il fat and gentlemanly as before, sensibly keeping his official obligations and his private life quite apart, and inspiring general respect, as became a civil, servant with a special commission. Indeed, the office of magistrate was much more interesting and attractive to Ivan Il'ich than his previous appointment. In his previous appointment it had been very pleasant in his fashionable uniform, and with a free and easy gait, to stroll past the tremulous and expectant crowd of petitioners and minor official personages awaiting an audience outside, who envied him the privilege of going straight into the chiefs private room, and sitting with him
