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trembled, jumped up, and with a yell rushed impetuously
to meet her, not knowing what he was doing. But they were
not allowed to come together, though they saw one another.
He was seized by the arms. He struggled, and tried to tear
himself away. It took three or four men to hold him. She was
seized too, and he saw her stretching out her arms to him,
crying aloud as they carried her away. When the scene was
over, he came to himself again, sitting in the same place as
before, opposite the investigating lawyer, and crying out to
them:
‘What do you want with her? Why do you torment her?
She’s done nothing, nothing!
The lawyers tried to soothe him. About ten minutes
passed like this. At last Mihail Makarovitch, who had been
absent, came hurriedly into the room, and said in a loud
and excited voice to the prosecutor:
‘She’s been removed, she’s downstairs. Will you allow me
to say one word to this unhappy man, gentlemen? In your
presence, gentlemen, in your presence.’
‘By all means, Mihail Makarovitch,’ answered the inves-
tigating lawyer. ‘In the present case we have nothing against
it.’
‘Listen, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, my dear fellow,’ began the
police captain, and there was a look of warm, almost father-
ly, feeling for the luckless prisoner on his excited face. ‘I took
your Agrafena Alexandrovna downstairs myself, and con-
fided her to the care of the landlord’s daughters, and that
old fellow Maximov is with her all the time. And I soothed
her, do you hear? I soothed and calmed her. I impressed on