ves of Praskov'ya Thedorovna), the widow evidently thought it was necessary to come to the point.
"Alas! Peter Ivanovich," said she, "how hard it is, how terribly hard, how terribly hard," and she burst into tears.
Peter Ivanovich sighed, and waited for her to dry her eyes. When she had dried her eyes, he said: "Believe in my sympathy!" And again she began to talk, and told him what was evidently her real business with him: it amounted to asking him how she was to set about obtaining some money from the Treasury on the occasion of her husband's death. She pretended to be asking the advice of Peter Ivanovich as to getting a pension; but he saw that she already knew all about it down to the minutest particular — nay, knew, what he did not know, the best means of extorting everything possible from the Treasury, with her husband's death as a pretext. What she really wanted to know was, whether it were possible, somehow or other, to extract still a little more money than was strictly due? Peter Ivanovich tried to devise some such expedient, but, after making some suggestions, and even, for decency's sake, cursing the Government for its niggardliness, he said that it seemed to him nothing more could be got. Then she sighed, and obviously was beginning to cast about for some means of ridding herself of her visitor. He understood this, extinguished his cigarette, pressed her hand, and went into the antechamber.
In the dining-room, with the clocks with which Ivan Il'ich had been so pleased (he bought them in a bric-à-brac shop), Peter Ivanovich met the priest
