Pagina 148 di 788

Luckily, just then there rode up on a visit Kirilo Gavrilich

Kozodusin,45 the Master of the Hunt of the Court, who inquired

the cause of so serious an attack. He had the police sergeant

pulled in by the ears; the man stood there pale, trembling, and

scarcely alive. 'How dare you,' shouted Kirilo with a voice of

thunder, 'course in spring a pregnant doe, here under the nose of

the Tsar?' The amazed sergeant in vain swore that he had not yet

begun his hunting, and that with the august permission of the

Master of the Hunt, the beast coursed seemed to him to be a dog

and not a doe. 'What!' shouted Kirilo, 'do you dare, you

scoundrel, to say that you have more knowledge of hunting and the

varieties of beasts than I, Kozodusin, the Tsar's Jagermeister?

The Chief of Police shall at once pass judgment between us,' They

summoned the Chief of Police and told him to take down the

evidence. 'I,' said Kozodusin, 'hereby testify that this is a

doe; he impudently alleges that it is a domestic dog.