"Don't be uneasy, Avdotya Arefyevna, why should we fight? Fie, brother, what a hullabaloo you are making!" he went on, addressing Akim. "Yes, really. You are a hasty one! Has anyone ever heard of turning anyone out of his house, especially the owner of it?" Naum added with slow deliberateness.

"Out of his house?" muttered Akim. "What owner?"

"Me, if you like."

And Naum screwed up his eyes and showed his white teeth in a grin.

"You? Why, it's my house, isn't it?"

"What a slow-witted fellow you are! I tell you it's mine."

Akim gazed at him open-eyed.

"What crazy stuff is it you are talking? One would think you had gone silly," he said at last. "How the devil can it be yours?"

"What's the good of talking to you?" cried Naum impatiently. "Do you see this bit of paper?" he went on, pulling out of his pocket a sheet of stamped paper, folded in four, "do you see? This is the deed of sale, do you understand, the deed of sale of your land and your house; I have bought them from the lady, from Lizaveta Prohorovna; the deed was drawn up at the town yesterday; so I am master here, not you. Pack your belongings today," he added, putting the document back in his pocket, "and don't let me see a sign of you here to-morrow, do you hear?"

Akim stood as though struck by a thunderbolt.

"Robber," he moaned at last, "robber.... Heigh, Fedka, Mitka, wife, wife, seize him, seize him--hold him."

He lost his head completely.

"Mind now, old man," said Naum menacingly, "mind what you are about, don't play the fool...."

"Beat him, wife, beat him!" Akim kept repeating in a tearful voice, trying helplessly and in vain to get up. "Murderer, robber.... She is not enough for you, you want to take my house, too, and everything.... But no, stop a bit ... that can't be.... I'll go myself, I'll speak myself ... how ... why should she sell it? Wait a bit, wait a bit."

And he dashed out bareheaded.

"Where are you off to, Akim Ivanitch?" said the servant Fetinya, running into him in the doorway.

"To our mistress! Let me pass! To our mistress!" wailed Akim, and seeing Naum's 

 Prev. P 45/157 next