First they admonished him with milder measures, then they put him under arrest… His superior officer admonished him like a father; and all he said was: pra-aiseworthy, pra-aiseworthy! And it’s strange: he was a courageous officer, six foot six. They wanted to court-martial him, but noticed that he was crazy.”

“Meaning… a prankster. For prankishness they shouldn’t be so severe… I, for my part, am ready to forgive…”

“There was medical evidence, Your Excellency.”

“What! an autopsy?”

“Good heavens, he was perfectly alive, sir.”

A loud and almost general burst of laughter came from the guests, who in the beginning had behaved themselves decorously. Ivan Ilyich became furious.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen!” he cried, at first almost without stammering, “I am quite well able to distinguish that autopsies are not performed on the living. I thought that in his madness he was no longer living… that is, already dead… that is, already dead… that is, I mean to say… that you don’t love me… And yet I love you all… yes, and I love Por… Porfiry… I humiliate myself by saying so…”

At that moment an enormous spit flew out of Ivan Ilyich’s mouth and spattered on the tablecloth in a most conspicuous place. Pseldonymov rushed to wipe it up with his napkin. This last disaster finally crushed him.

“Gentlemen, this is too much!” he cried out in despair.

“A drunk man, Your Excellency,” Pseldonymov prompted again.

“Porfiry! I see that you… all… yes! I say that I hope… yes, I challenge you all to say: how have I humiliated myself?”

Ivan Ilyich was on the verge of tears.

“Your Excellency, good heavens, sir!”

“Porfiry, I turn to you… Say, if I came… yes… yes, to the wedding, I had a goal. I wanted to morally uplift… I wanted them to feel. I address you all: am I very humiliated in your eyes, or not?”

Deathly silence. That was just the thing, that there was deathly silence, and to such a categorical question. “Why, why don’t they cry out at least at such a moment!” flashed in His Excellency’s head. But the guests only exchanged looks. Akim Petrovich was sitting there more dead than alive, and Pseldonymov, numb with fear, repeated to himself a terrible question, which had already presented itself to him long before:

“What am I going to get for all this tomorrow?”

Suddenly the already very drunk collaborator on The Firebrand, who had been sitting in glum silence, addressed Ivan Ilyich directly and, his eyes flashing, began to reply on behalf of the whole company.

“Yes, sir!” he cried in a thundering voice, “yes, sir, you’ve humiliated yourself, yes, sir, you’re a retrograde… Re-tro-grade!”

“Young man, come to your senses! To whom, as it were, are you speaking!” Ivan Ilyich cried furiously, again jumping up from his seat.

“To you, and, secondly, I’m not a young man… You came to show off and seek popularity.”

“Pseldonymov, what is it!” cried Ivan Ilyich.

But Pseldonymov jumped up in such horror that he stood like a post and absolutely did not know what to start doing. The guests, too, froze in their places. The artist and the student were applauding and shouting, “Bravo, bravo!”

The collaborator went on shouting with irrepressible rage:

“Yes, you came to flaunt your humaneness! You interfered with everybody’s merrymaking. You drank champagne without realizing that it was too expensive for a clerk who makes ten roubles a month, and I suspect that you’re one of those superiors who relish their subordinates’ young wives! Not only that, I’m convinced that you’re in favor of tax-farming… Yes, yes, yes!”

“Pseldonymov, Pseldonymov!” Ivan Ilyich cried, holding his arms out to him. He felt that each of the collaborator’s words was like a new dagger in his heart.

“Wait, Your Excellency, kindly do not worry!” Pseldonymov cried out energetically, jumped over to the collaborator, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, and pulled him away from the table. It was even impossible to expect such physical strength from the scrawny Pseldonymov. But the collaborator was very drunk, and Pseldonymov perfectly sober. Then he gave him several whacks on the back and chucked him out the door.

“You’re all scoundrels!” the collaborator cried. “By tomorrow I’ll make caricatures of you all in The Firebrand!…”

They all jumped up from their seats.

“Your Excellency, Your Excellency!” cried Pseldonymov, his mother, and some of the guests, crowding around the general. “Calm yourself, Your Excellency!”

“No, no!” cried the general, “I’m destroyed… I came… I wanted, so to speak, to baptize. And look here, for all that, for all that!”

He sank onto the chair as if unconscious, put both hands on the table, and lowered his head to them, right into a dish of blancmange. No need to describe the universal horror. A minute later he rose, as if wishing to leave, staggered, tripped against the leg of a chair, fell flat on the floor, and started snoring …

This happens to non-drinkers when they accidentally get drunk. To the last stroke, to the last instant they remain conscious, and then suddenly fall as if cut down. Ivan Ilyich lay on the floor, having lost all consciousness. Pseldonymov seized himself by the hair and froze in that position. The guests hastily began to depart, each discussing in his own way what had happened. It was about three o’clock in the morning.

The main thing was that Pseldonymov’s situation was much worse than could have been imagined, quite apart from the whole attractiveness of the present circumstances.