"Don't dare ..."
"Hold your tongue!"
"Don't dare to insult my betrothed," cried David at the top of his voice, "my future wife!"
"Betrothed!" repeated my father, with round eyes. "Betrothed! Wife! Ho, ho, ho! ..." ("Ha, ha, ha," my aunt echoed behind the door.) "Why, how old are you? He's been no time in the world, the milk is hardly dry on his lips, he is a mere babe and he is going to be married! But I ... but you ..."
"Let me go, let me go," whispered Raissa, and she made for the door. She looked more dead than alive.
"I am not going to ask permission of you," David went on shouting, propping himself up with his fists on the edge of the bed, "but of my own father who is bound to be here one day soon; he is a law to me, but you are not; but as for my age, if Raissa and I are not old enough ... we will bide our time whatever you may say...."
"Aië, aië, Davidka, don't forget yourself," my father interrupted. "Just look at yourself. You are not fit to be seen. You have lost all sense of decency."
David put his hand to the front of his shirt.
"Whatever you may say..." he repeated. "Oh, shut his mouth, Porfiry Petrovitch," piped my aunt from behind the door, "shut his mouth, and as for this hussy, this baggage ... this ..."
But something extraordinary must have cut short my aunt's eloquence at that moment: her voice suddenly broke off and in its place we heard another, feeble and husky with old age....