by raised hands or clapping or stamping of feet. Sandy

and suddenly inquired aloud across the table of the deaf man:

"wouldn't he have some more meat, and had he been given some wine?"

The old man made no answer and for a long while could not understand

what he was asked, though his neighbours amused themselves by poking

and shaking him. He simply gazed about him with his mouth open,

which only increased the general mirth.

"What an imbecile! Look, look! Why was he brought? But as to Pyotr

Petrovitch, I always had confidence in him," Katerina Ivanovna