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DIAMONDS TO SIT ON
‘ You mustn’t think, Katinka, that I am a thief, for she left these diamonds to me and instructed me to keep them away from Hippolyte, her old tormentor. And that is why, you poor dear, I had to leave you so suddenly. ‘ Don’t be angry with me. ' I arrived at Stargorod, and who do you think should turn up ? That lascivious old fool, Hippolyte Vorobianinov ; he must have discovered about the diamonds somehow or other. He must have dragged it out of the old woman before she died. An awful man I And he has got some dreadful criminal to travel about with him. I think he has hired a bandit. Both of them fell upon me and wanted to push me into the next world, but I’m not so easy to get rid of. I’m not going to be sat on by any one. ‘ At first I got on to the wrong track. I found only one chair in Vorobianinov’s house (it is a home for the aged now). I was just carrying it to my room in The Sorbonne ” when suddenly from round a corner a man fell upon me, and, roaring like a lion, he seized the chair. I looked at him closely and saw that it was Vorobianinov. He had shaved himself, and, just imagine it, his head was shaved as well. The swindler! Fancy a man disgracing himself like that at his time of hfe ! We broke the chair between us, but there was nothing in it. At the time I was very disappointed, but I realized later on that I had been on the wrong track. I was disgusted with Vorobianinov, and I told the old wretch what I thought of him. ° What a disgrace !” said I. “ A nice disgrace for your old age ! Such hooliganism, and in Russia Sir? thing,” I said, “ a marshal of nobihty attacking a servant of the Church ! ” And I reproached him for being a non-party man. “ You Tvln I said; " a wicked man and Clavdia Ivanovna s tormentor. A hunter after other people’s
