"I will step on one of your legs," exclaimed the landlady, furiously, "and tear you in half with the other."
"Be quiet, Irinya Stepanovna," said Varvara, persuasively. "We have visitors."
"You can bring your visitors along too," said the landlady. "I'll do the same to them."
She reeled and made a dash into the parlour, and suddenly changing her demeanour and tactics she said quietly to Prepolovenskaya, bowing so low before her that she almost fell on the floor:
"My dear lady, Sofya Efimovna, forgive a drunken old woman; I have something I'd like to say to you. You come to visit these people and yet you don't know that they're gossiping about your sister. And who to, d'you suppose? Me! A bootmaker's drunken wife! And why? So I'd tell everyone—that's why!"
Varvara grew purple in the face and said:
"I said nothing of the sort."
"You didn't? Do you mean to deny it, you mean cat?" shouted Ershova, coming up to Varvara, with clenched fists.
"Be quiet, will you?" muttered Varvara, in confusion.
"No," said the landlady, spitefully, "I won't be quiet," and she turned again to Prepolovenskaya. "Do you know what she says, the little beast? She tried to make out that your sister is carrying on with your husband!"