I remember we used to come to Golovliovo, and when we were thirty versts away, we began to shiver in our boots.
Well, here is mother dear, a live witness, she will tell you.
And nowadays. I don't understand it. I don't understand it."
"I don't either.
I came quietly, greeted you, kissed your hand and now I sit here and don't bother you. I drink tea, and if you give me supper, I'll have my supper.
Why did you raise all this fuss?"
Arina Petrovna sat in her chair listening attentively.
She seemed to be hearing the same old familiar tale that had begun long, long ago, time out of mind.
Aware that such a meeting of father and son foreboded no good, she considered it her duty to intervene and put in a word of reconciliation:
"Well, well, you turkey-cocks!" she said, trying to give the situation a humorous turn. "Just met and already quarreling.
Look at them jumping at each other, look at them!
Feathers will soon be flying.
My, my, how naughty!
Why don't you fellows sit down quietly and properly and have a friendly chat, and let your old mother enjoy it, too?
Petenka, you give in.
My child, you must always give in to your father, because he is your father.
Even if at times father gives you bitter medicine, take it without complaint, with obedience, with respect, because you are his son.
Who knows, maybe the bitter medicine will turn sweet—so it will be to your good.
And you, Porfiry Vladimirych, come down from your high perch.
He is your son, young, delicate.
He has made seventy-five versts over hollows and snow-drifts, he is tired, and chilled, and sleepy.
We are through with the tea now, suppose you order supper and then let's all go to bed.
So, my friend.
We'll all go to our nooks and offer up a prayer, and maybe our temper will pass away.
And then we'll rise early in the morning and pray for Volodya's soul.
We'll have a memorial service performed, and then we'll go home and have a talk.
Both of you will be rested and you'll state your affairs in a clear, orderly way.
Petenka, you will tell us about St. Petersburg and you, Porfiry, about your country life.
And now, let's have supper and to bed!"
The exhortation had its effect not because it was convincing but because Yudushka himself saw he had gone too far and it would be best to end the day peacefully.
He rose from his seat, kissed his mother's hand, thanked her for the "lesson," and ordered supper.
The meal was eaten in morose silence.
Then they left the dining-room and went to their rooms.
Little by little the house became still. The dead quiet crept from room to room and finally reached the study of the Golovliovo master.
Having finished the required number of genuflexions before the ikons, Yudushka, too, went to bed.
Porfiry Vladimirych lay in bed, but was unable to shut his eyes.
He felt his son's arrival portended something unusual, and various absurd sermons already rose in his mind.
Yudushka's harangues had the merit of being good for all occasions and did not consist of a connected chain of thoughts, but came to him in the shape of fragmentary aphorisms.
Whenever confronted by an extraordinary situation, such a flood of aphorisms overwhelmed him that even sleep could not drive them from his consciousness.
He could not fall asleep. He was a prey to his absurd sermonizings, though, as a matter of fact, he was not much perturbed by Petenka's mysterious arrival. He was prepared for no matter what happened.
He knew nothing would catch him napping and nothing would make him recede in the slightest from the web of empty, musty aphorisms in which he was entangled.
For him there existed neither sorrow nor joy, neither hatred, nor love.
To him the entire world was a vast coffin which served him as a pretext for endless prattling.
What greater grief could there be for a father than for his son to commit suicide? But even with respect to Volodya's suicide he remained true to himself.
It had been a very sad story, which had lasted two years.
For two years Volodya had held out, at first showing a pride and determination not to ask his father's aid. Then he weakened, began to implore, to expostulate, to threaten. In reply he always received a ready aphorism, the stone given to the hungry man.
It is doubtful whether Yudushka realized that he had handed his son a stone and not bread. At any rate a stone was all he had to give, and so he gave it.
When Volodya shot himself he had a requiem service performed, entered the day of his death in the calendar, and promised himself to have memorial services performed on the 23rd of November of every year.
Sometimes a dull voice muttered in his ears that the solution of a family quarrel by suicide is rather a questionable method, to say the least; and even then he brought into play a train of aphorisms, such as "God punishes disobedient children," "God is against the proud," and was at peace again.
And now!