Yakoff, grinning shrewdly earthwards, shook his head.
“That—how should it be expressed?—would not be a bad idea. But, you see, my capital, so to speak, will not permit.”
“Oh, stop your babbling. We know all about you Kazan orphans![7] You’ve married off your girl, and got a wife for your lad, and you have plenty of money. What more is there left for you to want from the Lord God?”
This flattered Yakoff, but he became more uncommunicative than ever. “O, Lord!” he muttered, with a sigh, in a sort of chuckling tone. “Money—I don’t know the sight of it, so to speak. And my lad—well, what of him? The boy’s no comfort to me. No comfort at all, to speak the plain truth! Young folks are no comfort nowadays!”
Yakoff, like many peasants, was extremely nervous, especially if his family or his affairs were in question. He was remarkably secretive, but on such occasions nervousness overpowered him, although only his disconnected, trembling speech betrayed the fact. So, in order to complete his disquiet, Tikhon Ilitch inquired sympathetically: “So he isn’t a comfort? Tell me, pray, is it all because of the woman?”
Yakoff, looking about him, scratched his breast with his finger-nails. “Yes, because of the woman, his wife, his father may go break his back with work.”
“Is she jealous?”
“Yes, she is. People set me down as the lover of my daughter-in-law.”
“H’m!” ejaculated Tikhon Ilitch sympathetically, although he knew full well that there is never smoke without fire.
But Yakoff’s eyes were already wandering: “She complained to her husband; how she complained! And, just think, she wanted to poison me. Sometimes, for example, a fellow catches cold and smokes a bit to relieve his chest. Well, she noticed that—and stuck a cigarette under my pillow. If I hadn’t happened to see it—I’d have been done for!”