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The petitioner, the widow of a staff captain Kalinin, came with a

request impossible and unreasonable; but Stepan Arkadyevitch, as

he generally did, made her sit down, heard her to the end

attentively without interrupting her, and gave her detailed

advice as to how and to whom to apply, and even wrote her, in his

large, sprawling, good and legible hand, a confident and fluent

little note to a personage who might be of use to her. Having got

rid of the staff captain's widow, Stepan Arkadyevitch took his

hat and stopped to recollect whether he had forgotten anything.

It appeared that he had forgotten nothing except what he wanted

to forget-his wife.