At the door stood the sleepy, fat Grisha, looking on at the scene, and blinking both eyes at periodical intervals.
“I couldn't cut his hair as you wished, because he wouldn't let me!” he growled at last. “ ‘You'd better let me do it!’—I said, ‘or the mistress'll be down one of these days, and then we shall both catch it!’ ”
“No,” he says, “I want it like this now, and you shall cut it on Sunday. I like it long!”
“What!—So you wish to curl it without my leave, do you! What an idea—as if you could wear curls with your sheep-face underneath! Good gracious, what a mess you've made of the place; and what's the smell—what have you been doing, idiot, eh!” cried Maria Alexandrovna, waxing more and more angry, and turning furiously upon the wretched and perfectly innocent Afanassy!
“Mam—mammy!” muttered the poor frightened master of the house, gazing with frightened eyes at the mistress, and blinking with all his might—“mammy!”
“How many times have I dinned into your stupid head that I am not your ‘mammy.’ How can I be your mammy, you idiotic pigmy? How dare you call a noble lady by such a name; a lady whose proper place is in the highest circles, not beside an ass like yourself!”
“Yes—yes,—but—but, you are my legal wife, you know, after all;—so I—it was husbandly affection you know——” murmured poor Afanassy, raising both hands to his head as he spoke, to defend his hair from the tugs he evidently expected.
“Oh, idiot that you are! did anyone ever hear such a ridiculous answer as that—legal wife, indeed! Who ever heard the expression ‘legal wife,’ in good society—nasty low expression! And how dare you remind me that I am your wife, when I use all my power and do all I possibly can at every moment to forget the fact, eh? What are you covering your head with your hands for? Look at his hair—now: wet, as wet as reeds! it will take three hours to dry that head! How on earth am I to take him like this? How can he show his face among respectable people? What am I to do?”
And Maria Alexandrovna bit her finger-nails with rage as she walked furiously up and down the room.
It was no very great matter, of course; and one that was easily set right; but Maria Alexandrovna required a vent for her feelings and felt the need of emptying out her accumulated wrath upon the head of the wretched Afanassy Matveyevitch; for tyranny is a habit recallable at need.