"You go on eating and drinking—I don't object; but I'll go to the hairdresser and I'll have my hair done in the Spanish style."
"What is the Spanish style?" asked Routilov.
"Wait and you'll see."
When Peredonov went to get his hair trimmed, Varvara said:
"He's always inventing new notions. He sees devils. If he only drank less gin, the cursed tippler!"
Prepolovenskaya said with a sly smile:
"Well, as soon as you are married, Ardalyon Borisitch will get his place and settle down."
Grushina sniggered. She was amused by the secrecy of this wedding, and she was excited by an intense desire to create an ignominious spectacle of some sort and yet not be mixed up with it. On the day before she had whispered in an underhand way to her friends the place and hour of the wedding. And early that morning she had called in the blacksmith's younger son, had given him a five-kopeck piece, and hinted to him that towards evening he should wait outside the town where the newly married couple would pass, to throw rubbish at them. The boy gladly agreed and gave his sworn promise not to betray her. Grushina reminded him:
"You did give away Cherepnin when they beat you."
"We were fools," said the boy. "Now, let 'em hang us and we won't tell."