His pharaonic beard quivered.
“Because I love him.”
“But what about me?”
“Basilius!
I already made it known to you yesterday that I don’t love you anymore.”
“But I do!
I love you, Barbara!”
“That’s your problem, Basilius.
I’m leaving you for Ptiburdukov.
That’s how it should be.”
“No!” exclaimed Lokhankin. “That’s not how it should be!
A person cannot leave if the other person loves her!”
“Yes, she can,” said Barbara testily, looking at herself in a pocket mirror. “Stop acting silly, Basilius.”
“In that case, I’m still on a hunger strike!” cried the heartbroken husband. “I will starve until you come back to me.
A day.
A week.
I’ll starve for a year!”
Lokhankin rolled over again and stuck his beefy nose into the cold slippery oilcloth.
“I’ll lie like this, in my suspenders, until I die,” came from the couch.
“And it’ll be your fault, yours and that engineer Ptiburdukov’s.”
His wife thought for a moment, pulled a fallen strap back onto her dough-white shoulder, and suddenly burst out:
“You can’t talk about Ptiburdukov like that!
He’s better than you!”
This was too much for Lokhankin.
He jerked as if an electric charge went through his entire body, from his suspenders to the green karpetki.
“You’re a floozy, Barbara,” he whined. “You’re a tramp!”
“Basilius, you’re a fool!” his wife retorted calmly.
“You she-wolf you,” continued the whiny Lokhankin. “I truly do despise you.
You leave me for your lover, do you not?
You leave me for Ptiburdukov.
You, ghastly you, you leave me now, forever, for that contemptible Ptiburdukov.
So that’s for whom you’re leaving me forever!
You want to give yourself to him in lust.
An old she-wolf you are, yes, old and ghastly too!”
Wallowing in his grief, Lokhankin didn’t even notice that he was speaking in iambic pentameter, even though he never wrote any poetry and didn’t like to read it.
“Basilius!
Stop being such a clown,” said the she-wolf, closing her bag. “Just look at yourself.
You should wash.
I’m leaving.
Goodbye, Basilius!
I put your ration card for bread on the table.”
With that, Barbara picked up her bag and headed for the door.
Seeing that his incantations didn’t work, Lokhankin quickly jumped off the couch, ran to the table, cried
“Help!” and tore the card to pieces.
Barbara was frightened.
She pictured her husband emaciated from starvation, with a barely discernible pulse and cold extremities.
“What have you done?” she said.
“Don’t you dare starve yourself!”
“I will!” declared Lokhankin stubbornly.
“It’s stupid, Basilius.