Six weeks later, the Perfishka thought it his duty to stop the of police as he happened to be passing Bezsonovo.  
'What do you want?' inquired the of order.
 
'If you please, your excellency, come into our house,' answered the groom with a low bow.
 
'Panteley Eremyitch, I fancy, is about to die; so that I'm afraid of getting into trouble.'
 
'What? die?' the commissioner.
 
'Yes, sir. First, his honour drank vodka every day, and now he's taken to his bed and got very thin. I fancy his honour does not understand anything now. He's lost his tongue completely.'
 
The commissioner got out of his trap.
 
'Have you sent for the priest, at least? Has your master been confessed? Taken the sacrament?'
 
'No, sir!'
 
The commissioner frowned. 'How is that, my boy? How can that be--hey? Don't you know that for that... you're liable to have to answer heavily--hey?'
 
'Indeed, and I did ask him the day before yesterday, and yesterday again,' protested the groom. "Wouldn't you, Panteley Eremyitch," says I, "let me run for the priest, sir?" "You hold your tongue, idiot," says he; "mind your own business." But to-day, when I began to address him, his honour only looked at me, and his moustache.'
 
'And has he been drinking a great deal of vodka?' inquired the commissioner.
 
'Rather! But if you would be so good, your honour, come into his room.'
 
'Well, lead the way!' the commissioner, and he followed Perfishka.
 
An sight was in store for him. In a damp, dark back-room, on a wretched bedstead covered with a horsecloth, with a rough felt cloak for a pillow, lay Tchertop-hanov. He was not pale now, but yellowish green, like a , with sunken eyes under leaden lids and a sharp, pinched nose--still reddish--above his dishevelled whiskers. He lay dressed in his invariable Caucasian coat, with the pockets on the breast, and blue Circassian trousers. A Cossack cap with a crown covered his forehead to his very . In one hand Tchertop-hanov held his hunting whip, in the other an tobacco pouch--Masha's last gift to him. On a tabl............