what finally 'did for,' as they say, tchertop-hanov was the following circumstance. one day he sauntered, riding on malek-adel, about the back-yards of the priest's quarters round about the church of the parish in which is bezsonovo. huddled up, with his cossack fur cap pulled down over his eyes, and his hands hanging loose on the saddle-bow, he jogged slowly on, a vague discontent in his heart. suddenly someone called him.
he stopped his horse, raised his head, and saw his correspondent, the deacon. with a brown, three-cornered hat on his brown hair, which was plaited in a pig-tail, attired in a yellowish nankin long coat, girt much below the waist by a strip of blue stuff, the servant of the altar had come out into his back-garden, and, catching sight of panteley eremyitch, he thought it his duty to pay his respects to him, and to take the opportunity of doing so to ask him a question about something. without some such hidden motive, as we know, ecclesiastical persons do not venture to address temporal ones.
but tchertop-hanov was in no mood for the deacon; he barely responded to his bow, and, muttering something between his teeth, he was already cracking his whip, when....
'what a magnificent horse you have!' the deacon made haste to add: 'and really you can take credit to yourself for it. truly you're a man of amazing cleverness, simply a lion indeed!'
his reverence the deacon prided himself on his fluency, which was a great source of vexation to his reverence the priest, to whom the gift of words had not been vouchsafed; even vodka did not loosen his tongue.
'after losing one animal by the cunning of evil men,' continued the deacon, 'you did not lose courage in repining; but, on the other hand, trusting the more confidently in divine providence, procured yourself another, in no wise inferior, but even, one may say, superior, since....'
'what nonsense are you talking?' tchertop-hanov interrupted gloomily; 'what other horse do you mean? this is the same one; this is malek-adel.... i found him. the fellow's raving!'....
'ay! ay! ay!' responded the deacon emphatically with a sort of drawl, drumming with his fingers in his beard, and eyeing tchertop-hanov with his bright eager eyes: 'how's that, sir? your horse, god help my memory, was stolen a fortnight before intercession last year, and now we're near the end of november.'
'well, what of that?'
the deacon still fingered his beard.
'why, it follows that more than a year's gone by since then, and your horse was a dapple grey then, just as it is now; in fact, it seems even darker. how's that? grey horses get a great deal lighter in colour in a year.'
tchertop-hanov started... as though someone had driven a dagger into his heart. it was true: the grey colour did change! how was it such a simple reflection had never occurred to him?
'you damned pigtail! get out!' he yelled suddenly, his eyes flashing with fury, and instantaneously he disappeared out of the sight of the amazed deacon.
well, everything was over!
now, at last, everything was really over, everything was shattered, the last card trumped. everything crumbled away at once before that word 'lighter'!
grey horses get lighter in colour!
'gallop, gallop on, accursed brute! you can never gallop away from that word!'
tchertop-hanov flew home, and again locked himself up.
