'I forget them, sir!'
'Your Excellency, I have already submitted to you that I have not come here from them, though I may nevertheless inform your Excellency, among other things, that they are already joined in the bonds of lawful matrimony.' . . . ('There, it's all one!' thought Paklin; 'I said I'd lie a bit here, and I'm lying. Here goes!')
Sipyagin moved his head restlessly to right and left against the back of his easy-chair.
'That is a matter of no interest to me, sir. One foolish marriage the more in the world, that's all. But what is this most urgent business to which I am indebted for the pleasure of your visit?'
'Ugh! the damned director of a department!' Paklin thought again. 'That's enough of your airs and graces, you ugly English monkey-face.'
'Your wife's brother,' he said aloud—'Mr. Markelov—has been seized by the peasants he had meant to incite to insurrection, and is now in custody in the governor's house.'
Sipyagin jumped up a second time.
'What . . . what did you say?' he stammered, not at all in his ministerial baritone, but in a sort of piteous guttural.
'I said your brother-in-law had been seized
189
