Nekhliudof was about to say something to her, but she turned her back on him, and began to cross herself before the black wooden ikon, that was visible behind the loom.
When she had thus done, she adjusted the dirty checkered handkerchief which was tied around her head, and made a low obeisance to the prince.
"A pleasant Lord's day to you, excellency," she said. "God spare you; you are our father."
When Davidka saw his mother he grew confused, bent his back a little, and hung his head still lower.
"Thanks, Arína," replied Nekhliudof. "I have just been talking with your son about your affairs."[36]
Arína or Aríshka Burlák,[37] as the peasants used to call her when she was a girl, rested her chin on the clinched fist of her right hand, which she supported with the palm of the left, and, without waiting for the prince to speak further, began to talk so sharply and loud that the whole hovel was filled with the sound of her voice; and from outside it might have been concluded that several women had suddenly fallen into a discussion.
"What, my father, what is then to be said to him? You can't talk to him as to a man. Here he stands, the lout," she continued contemptuously, wagging her head in the direction of Davidka's woe-begone, stolid form.
"How are my affairs, your excellency? We are poor. In your whole village there are none so bad off as we are, either for our own work or for yours. It's a shame! And it's all his fault. I bore him, fed him, gave him to drink. Didn't expect to have such a lubber. There is but one end to the story. Grain is all gone, and no more work to be got out of him than from that piece of rotten wood. All he knows is to lie on top of the oven, or else he stands here, and scratches his empty pate," she said, mimicking him.
"If you could only frighten him, father! I myself beseech you: punish him, for the Lord God's sake! send him off as a soldier,—it's all one. But he's no good to me,—that's the way it is."
"Now, aren't you ashamed, Davidka, to bring your mother to this?" said Nekhliudof reproachfully, addressing the peasant.