'Pas trop de zèle, dear Semyon Petrovitch,' observed the governor with a smirk. 'Remember Talleyrand! If there's anything amiss, he won't escape us either. You'd much better devote your thoughts to your . . .' The governor made a gesture suggesting a noose round the neck. . . . 'And by the way,' he turned again to Sipyagin—'et ce gaillard-là' (he again indicated Paklin by a turn of his chin), 'qu'en ferons-nous? He doesn't look formidable.'
'Let him go,' said Sipyagin softly, and he added in German: 'Lass den Lumpen laufen!'
He imagined, for some unknown reason, that he was making a quotation from Goethe, from Götz von Berlichingen.
'You can go, sir!' observed the governor aloud. 'We have no further need of you! Good-bye, till we meet again.'
Paklin made a general bow and went out into the street, utterly crushed and humiliated. Good God! this contempt annihilated him!
'What am I?' he thought in unutterable despair; 'both coward and informer? Oh, no . . . no; I'm an honest man, gentlemen, and I'm not quite devoid of all manliness!'
But what was this familiar figure standing on the steps of the governor's house, gazing at him with dejected eyes, full of reproach? Why,
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