“What are you scribbling day and night?” inquired Tatiana Markovna. “Is it a play or another novel?”
“I write and write, Granny, and don’t know myself how it will end.”
“It doesn’t matter what the child does so long as he is amused,” she remarked, not altogether missing the character of Raisky’s occupation. “But why do you write at night, when I am so afraid of fire, and you might fall asleep over your drama. You will make yourself ill, and you often look as yellow as an over-ripe gherkin as it is.”
He looked in the glass, and was struck with his own appearance. Yellow patches were visible on the nose and temples, and there were grey threads in his thick, black hair.
“If I were fair,” he grumbled, “I should not age so quickly. Don’t bother about me, Granny, but leave me my freedom. I can’t sleep.”
“You too ask me for freedom, like Vera. It is as if I held you both in chains,” she added with an anxious sigh. “Go on writing, Borushka, but not at night. I cannot sleep in peace, for when I look at your window the light is always burning.”
“I will answer for it, Grandmother, that there shall be no fire, and if I myself were to be burnt....”
“Touch wood! Do not tempt fate. Remember the saying that ‘my tongue is my enemy.’”
Suddenly Raisky sprang from the divan and ran to the window.
“There is a peasant bringing a letter from Vera,” he cried, as he hurried out of the room.