"Well, what of it?" asked Porfiry Vladimirych, at last coming to his senses.
"I was just telling what a pleasant life Palageyushka leads."
"And you, is your life worse?
My, my, aren't you insatiable!"
Had Yevpraksia left his remark unanswered, Porfiry Vladimirych would have belched forth a torrent of empty words to drown her foolish hints. He would have resumed his twaddle.
But apparently Yevpraksia had no intention of holding her tongue.
"I can't say that," she snapped back. "My life is not a sad one.
Thank goodness I don't wear tick.
Last year you bought me two calico dresses and paid five rubles for each. How generous!"
"And how about the woolen dress? And for whom was a shawl bought lately? My, my!"
Instead of answering, Yevpraksia placed her elbows on the table and flashed on Yudushka a side glance brimming over with such deep contempt that, unaccustomed to such looks, he was overcome with something like dread.
"Do you know how the Lord punishes ingratitude?" he mumbled feebly, hoping the reference to God would bring the woman to her senses.
But his remark did not placate the mutineer. She cut him short at once.
"Don't talk me blind!" she exclaimed, "and don't drag in God. I'm not a baby.
Enough! I've had enough of your tyranny."
Porfiry Vladimirych grew silent.
His glass of tea stood untouched.
His face grew pale, his lips trembled, as if trying vainly to curl up into a grin.
"These are Anninka's tricks," he said finally, though without a clear perception of what he was saying. "It's she, the snake, who has incited you."
"What tricks do you mean?"
"I mean the way you are talking to me. She, she taught you.
No one else!" he foamed in a rage.
"Give her silk dresses!
The impudence! Do you know, you shameless creature, who in your position wears silk dresses?"
"Tell me and I will know."
"The most—the most dissolute ones. They are the only ones who wear silk dresses."
But Yevpraksia was not impressed. On the contrary, she answered him back with saucy arguments.
"I don't know why you call them dissolute. Everybody knows it's the masters that insist upon it. If a master seduces one of us, well, she lives with him.
You and I are not so saintly either, we are doing the same as the Mazulina master and his queen."
"Oh, you! Fie, fie, for shame!"
Yudushka stared at his rebellious companion in utter consternation.
A flow of empty words came tripping to his tongue, but for the first time in his life he felt a vague suspicion that there are occasions when even talk is useless.
"Well, my friend, I see there's no use talking to you to-day," he said, rising from the table.
"Neither to-day, nor to-morrow—never!
No more of your tyranny!
I've listened to you enough; now it's time for you to listen to me."
Porfiry Vladimirych made a movement as if to throw himself at her with clenched fists, but she protruded her chest with such determination that he lost heart.
He turned his face to the ikon, lifted up his hands prayerfully, mumbled a prayer, and trudged slowly away into his room.
The whole day he felt uneasy.
He had no definite fears for the future, but the feeling that something had broken in upon his well-ordered life and had passed unpunished greatly upset him.
He did not go to dinner, pleading ill health, and in a meek, feeble voice asked that his food be brought into his room.
In the evening after tea, which passed in silence for the first time in his life, he rose, as was his habit, to say his prayers. In vain did his lips seek to whisper the customary words. His agitated mind refused to follow the prayer.
A persistent enervating anxiety pervaded his being, and he involuntarily strained his ear to catch the dying echoes of the day, which were lingering in the various corners of the vast manor-house.
Finally, when even the yawning of the people could be heard no more, and the house was plunged in the profoundest quiet, he could not hold out any longer.
Stealing noiselessly along the corridor, he went to Yevpraksia's room and put his ear to the door to listen.
She was alone, and Yudushka heard her yawning and saying,
"Lord!
Savior!
Holy Virgin," as she scratched her back.
Porfiry Vladimirych tried the knob, but the door was locked.