Onisim looked up from under his brows at his master.
‘And you ‘re always like this. Yes, positively always.’
Onisim smiled.
‘But what’s the good of my asking you where you’re going, Ivan Afanasiitch? As though I didn’t know! To the girl at the baker’s shop!’
‘There, that’s just where you’re wrong! that’s just where you’re mistaken! Not to her at all. I don’t intend going to see the girl at the baker’s shop any more.’
Onisim dropped his eyelids and brandished the brush. Pyetushkov waited for his approbation; but his servant remained speechless.
‘It’s not the proper thing,’ Pyetushkov went on in a severe voice—‘it’s unseemly.... Come, tell me what you think?’
‘What am I to think? It’s for you to say. What business have I to think?’
Pyetushkov put on his coat. ‘He doesn’t believe me, the beast,’ he thought to himself.
He went out of the house, but he did not go to see any one. He walked about the streets. He directed his attention to the sunset. At last a little after eight o’clock he returned home. He wore a smile; he repeatedly shrugged his shoulders, as though marvelling at his own folly. ‘Yes,’ thought he, ‘this is what comes of a strong will....’