"It doesn't make any difference that they're aristocrats," bleated Volodin in an injured tone. "Anything might be expected from aristocrats."
Many of the guests then began to think that perhaps it was time they stopped laughing.
"You seem to have bad luck with glass, Ardalyon Borisitch," said Routilov. "First your spectacles were broken and now they've smashed your window."
This evoked a new outburst of laughter.
"Broken windows mean long life," said Prepolovenskaya with a restrained smile.
When Peredonov and Varvara were going to bed that night, it seemed to him that Varvara had something evil in her mind; he took from her the knives and forks and hid them under the mattress. He mumbled in a slow, dull way:
"I know you: as soon as you marry me you'll inform against me in order to get rid of me. You'll get a pension and I'll be in Petropavlosk jail working on the treadmill."
That night Peredonov's mind wandered. Dim, terrible figures walked about noiselessly, kings and knaves, swinging their sceptres. They whispered to each other, tried to hide from Peredonov, and stealthily crept towards him under the pillow. But soon they grew bolder and began to walk and run and stir around Peredonov everywhere, upon the floor, upon the bed, upon the pillows. They whispered, they mocked at Peredonov, thrust out their tongues at him, made terrible grimaces before him, stretching out their mouths into deformed shapes. Peredonov saw that they were little and mischievous, that they would not kill him, but were only deriding him, and foreboding evil. But he felt a terrible fear—now he muttered exorcisms, fragments of spells he had heard in his childhood, now he began to curse them and to drive them from him, waving his arms and shouting in a hoarse voice.
Varvara woke and called out irately:
"What are you making such a row about, Ardalyon Borisitch? You won't let me sleep."