‘O Good Lord!’ exclaimed Nikolai Artemyevitch hurriedly, ‘how often have I prayed and besought, how often have I said how I hate these scenes and explanations! When one’s been away an age, and comes home hoping for rest—talk of the family circle, intérieur, being a family man—and here one finds scenes and unpleasantnesses. There’s not a minute of peace. One’s positively driven to the club... or, or elsewhere. A man is alive, he has a physical side, and it has its claims, but here——’
And without concluding his sentence Nikolai Artemyevitch went quickly out, slamming the door.
Anna Vassilyevna looked after him. ‘To the club!’ she muttered bitterly: ‘you are not going to the club, profligate? You’ve no one at the club to give away my horses to—horses from my own stable—and the grey ones too! My favourite colour. Yes, yes, fickle-hearted man,’ she went on raising her voice, ‘you are not going to the club, As for you, Paul,’ she pursued, getting up, ‘I wonder you’re not ashamed. I should have thought you would not be so childish. And now my head has begun to ache. Where is Zoya, do you know?’
‘I think she’s upstairs in her room. The wise little fox always hides in her hole when there’s a storm in the air.’
‘Come, please, please!’ Anna Vassilyevna began searching about her. ‘Haven’t you seen my little glass of grated horse-radish? Paul, be so good as not to make me angry for the future.’
‘How make you angry, auntie? Give me your little hand to kiss. Your horse-radish I saw on the little table in the boudoir.’
‘Darya always leaves it about somewhere,’ said Anna Vassilyevna, and she walked away with a rustle of silk skirts.
Shubin was about to follow her, but he stopped on hearing Uvar Ivanovitch’s drawling voice behind him.
‘I would... have given it you... young puppy,’ the retired cornet brought out in gasps.
Shubin went up to him. ‘And what have I done, then, most venerable Uvar Ivanovitch?’