For this it was said she had been seized and flogged too.

This story not only appeared in print, but in our excitement we positively got up a subscription for her benefit.

I subscribed twenty kopecks myself.

And would you believe it?
It appears now that there was no old woman called Tarapygin living in the almshouse at all! I went to inquire at the almshouse by the cemetery myself; they had never heard of anyone called Tarapygin there, and, what's more, they were quite offended when I told them the story that was going round.

I mention this fabulous Avdotya Petrovna because what happened to her (if she really had existed) very nearly happened to Stepan Trofimovitch.