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"My late husband certainly had that weakness, and everyone knows

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 children!"

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

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

thought.