Outlandish man Ivan Semenovich Stratilatov. Young began his judicial service in the long, low, sooty office of the criminal department. And now forty years have passed, and many secretaries have since been replaced, and he still sits at a large table by the window - in smoky glasses, bald on the head - and rewrites the papers. Ivan Semenovich lives in an apartment in the house of Deacon Prokopiy. Agapevna serves him, meekly, by faith and truth. Yes - the old one, no matter what it takes, everything falls apart, and snores like a sergeant major, and in all corners, at the stove, behind the cabinet, stale bread crusts are folded up - for some reason. He would have driven Stratilatov to Agapevna, but he still could not imagine how he would part with the old woman: Agapevna took root in the house, Agapevna knows all the corners.
The Stratilatov was once married. Glafira Nikanorovna - a quiet, gentle woman. And all would be nothing. Yes, they appointed a new investigator about this time to the court: young, playful, and the surname is the same: Stratilatov. Once in the name-day of Artemy, the old Pokrovsky deacon, among all kinds of jokes, Ivan Semenovich heard something in a drunken corner, and about Glafira Nikanorovna: Ivan Semenovich dropped the plug: a swivel investigator introduced himself. He got out from the table, without a hat - home. Frantic burst in and from the threshold: “Get out of my house!” In the same year, the investigator was also transferred somewhere, and Glafira Nikanorovna stayed with her mother, quiet, meek. It is impossible to stay in the house alone: it’s both boring and looking after the house. It was then that she decided on Ivan Semenovich Agapevna.
The first comes to the court of Stratilates. In the morning, it’s better not to disturb him: at twelve the secretary will demand performances on the previous day. Ivan Semenovich is afraid of the secretary of Lykov’s secretion, even though he senses with his nose: let Lykov be a legalist, neat as a German, but still a shushera, a revolutionary. And only the secretary will leave with a report, Stratilatov becomes inexhaustible: he fries all kinds of adventures, all kinds of historical adventures with memory, sprinkling with anecdotes, jokes, and everything is hotter, more energetic, as if beating a tambourine. In the office - who laughs, who sniffles, who squeals: "The indefatigable tambourine!"
However, among the judicial officials, only Boris Sergeyevich Zimarev - assistant secretary and direct chief of Stratilatov - for his ability to accurately and correctly identify antiquities, of which Ivan Semenovich is a great lover, earned him sincere respect and even friendship.
There were other friends with Ivan Semenovich, but all the people turned out to be dubious. It was as if they came to listen to his singing, after all, Stratilatov was also a master on the guitar - one artist from Petersburg remained alive, and the regent Yagodov was not for nothing. Miraculously, Ivan Semenovich escaped them. Now - only for Zimarev Boris Sergeyevich after tea he sings and plays.
One summer in the name day of Artemy, the old Pokrovsky deacon, I saw the Stratilates his orphan niece Hope, so thin, white, and his nature was overwhelmed. And summer, and autumn, and looked after all winter. And he stopped sleeping, everything turns and turns. A friend intervened. I persuaded a young one. It was then that Stratilatov Agapevna drove from the yard.
Soon everyone knew that Stratilatov had Hope and that they lived as if in a real marriage. Officials came from all branches of the court - to congratulate, giggle and just a peek. Stratilatov both laughed and joked, and then lost his temper: He took hope for Agapevna’s place, nothing more. They laughed him, because the evidence is there! Yes, there’s another case ...
During the late mass at the Church of All Saints, the people flock to the fool Matren to listen. She talks like children - joyfully, out of breath - from the lives and the gospel. And under Stratilatov - he was just returning from a late mass - an immodest dream told. The people laughed, deacon Prokopiy rumbled at his best, Ivan Semyonovich cursed, spat, and away. And the deacon with a laugh: "And your Naderka is a whore walking!" “But I’ll shoot you, deacon.” Ivan Semenovich quickly jumped to the house and then back, with a large Georgian pistol decorated with thin carvings. Everything is quiet. Ivan Semenovich aims, it seems, is about to pull the trigger. The deacon suddenly trembled, stuck out his tongue and, as if on broken legs, walked away. The next day, Stratilatov moved out, to please Nadezhda he left the deacon’s house, moved to a new apartment to his neighbor Tarakteyev.
There would be no end to conversations and ridicule, but the police chief Zhiganovsky turned his mind away. I decided to bring the female nuns of Zachatievsky to clean water. He sat down in the basket like a gentleman — at night the nuns lifted them to their windows. Yes, as they looked into the basket - out of fear and released the rope, and Zhiganovsky killed himself to death. And here's another: the official drank thirty-nine cups of tea, grabbed the fortieth, his eyes bulged out, and then suddenly water would pour from his ears, from his mouth, from his nose - and he died. And in broad daylight, the Verbova schoolgirl, executing the verdict of the local revolutionary committee, shot by mistake instead of the governor of the retired colonel Auritsky. That same night, Lykov’s secretary was also arrested. Stratilatov triumphed: he had long known that the incorruptible and steady Lykov, who held his head higher than the prosecutor himself, was a revolutionary.
And in the office Lykov did not leave his tongue. During the conversations, they did not notice that one day Ivan Semenovich did not appear in the office. Enough only after three days. Zimarev found Agapevna. After the expulsion of her old sheltered near Ivan Semenovich, felt: to be in trouble! And indeed, the lover seduced, Emelyan Prokudin, Hope, she left with him, and they filled up all good. Seized Prokudin and styling with silver. Stratilatov - does not give, well, he “dared” him.
At the Stratilatov hospital, everyone complained: “If I’m not sick, I would go to court directly.” He himself is bandaged, lies on a bed - neither to turn, nor to raise a hand. They told me, suffered before death, languished. And left without heirs. Things are set for sale. And while Agapevna lived with them. The old woman became completely insane: she would lie down at night on a couch, but not lie down, she could hear everything, as if Ivan Semenovich was crying out: “Agapevna?” - "I, father."
