“‘Oh Volga, proudest of rivers,
Stem thy hurrying flood;
Oh Volga, hearken, hearken,
To the ringing song of the poet,
The unknown, whose life thou hast spared.’”
“Don’t be vexed with me, Borushka,” cried Tatiana Markovna, “but I think you are mad. What have you done with the papers I sent you? Have you brought them?”
“Where are they?” she continued, as he shook his head.
“Granny, I tore up all the accounts, and I swear I will do the same with these if you worry me with them.”
He seized the paper, but she snatched them away, exclaiming, “You dare to tear up my accounts.”
He laughed, suddenly embraced her, and kissed her lips as he had done when he was a child. She shook herself free and wiped her mouth.
“I toil till midnight, adding up and writing down every kopek, and he tears up my work. That is why you never wrote about money matters, gave any orders, made any preparations, or did anything of the kind. Did you never think of your estate?”
“Not at all, Granny. I forgot all about it. If I thought at all I thought of these rooms in which lives the only woman who loves me and is loved by me, you alone in the whole world. And now,” he said, turning to Marfinka, “I want to win my sisters too.”
His aunt took off her spectacles and gazed at him.
“In all my days I have never seen anything like it,” she said. “Here the only person with no roots like that is Markushka.”