their children. His unspoken message was equally clear:

it," Katerina Ivanovna attacked him at once, "but he was a kind and

honourable man, who loved and respected his family. The worst of it

was his good nature made him trust all sorts of disreputable people,

and he drank with fellows who were not worth the sole of his shoe.

Would you believe it, Rodion Romanovitch, they found a gingerbread

cock in his pocket; he was dead drunk, but he did not forget the

"A cock? Did you say a cock?" shouted the commissariat clerk.

Katerina Ivanovna did not vouchsafe a reply. She sighed, lost in