"Will you have dinner now?" inquired she at last. "It is ready."
In a low voice he asked for dinner, but he ate almost nothing; the woman had never yet seen him so broken, still she made no inquiry. When the moment came he would tell all himself. He was not of those who bear secrets to the grave with them. She waited on the man, gave him food, brought tea, cleared the table in silence. Once she fell into trouble: Passing hurriedly through the room she lost one of the overshoes which she had on her feet:
"Ah! may thou be!—they fall off every moment!" grumbled she, and for some minutes she struggled with that overshoe, which, dropping from her foot, slipped along the floor noisily. Kranitski raised his head:
"What is that?" inquired he.
She made no answer, but when she was near the kitchen door, he cried:
"What have you on your feet that clatter so? It is irritating!"
She stopped at the door:
"What have I on my feet? Well, your old overshoes! Am I to wear out shoes every day, and then buy new ones? 'Irritating!' Arabian adventure! God grant that you never have worse irritation than overshoes clattering on the floor!"
And she grumbled on in the kitchen while going with an empty glass to the samovar:
"You wouldn't have a pinch of tea in the house if I went around in new shoes all my time!"