‘Much obliged,’ responded Harlov. ‘But I cannot.… Oh! I must get home.’
He backed and was about to move sideways, as his habit was, through the door.
‘Stop, stop a minute,’ my mother went on, ‘can you possibly mean to make over the whole of your property without reserve to your daughters?’
‘Certainly, without reserve.’
‘Well, but how about yourself—where are you going to live?’
Harlov positively flung up his hands in amazement. ‘You ask where? In my house, at home, as I’ve lived hitherto … so henceforward. Whatever difference could there be?’
‘You have such confidence in your daughters and your son-in-law, then?’
‘Were you pleased to speak of Volodka? A poor stick like him? Why, I can do as I like with him, whatever it is … what authority has he? As for them, my daughters, that is, to care for me till I’m in the grave, to give me meat and drink, and clothe me.… Merciful heavens! it’s their first duty. I shall not long be an eyesore to them. Death’s not over the hills—it’s upon my shoulders.’
‘Death is in God’s hands,’ observed my mother; ‘though that is their duty, to be sure. Only pardon me, Martin Petrovitch; your elder girl, Anna, is well known to be proud and imperious, and—well—the second has a fierce look.…’
‘Natalia Nikolaevna!’ Harlov broke in, ‘why do you say that?… Why, as though they … My daughters … Why, as though I … Forget their duty? Never in their wildest dreams.… Offer opposition? To whom? Their parent … Dare to do such a thing? Have they not my curse to fear? They’ve passed their life long in fear and in submission—and all of a sudden … Good Lord!’