“Don’t you love anybody either? And how about mama? She drinks so much. I’d kill her too.”
“And me?”
“No, not you. You talk to me at least. I feel sorry for you sometimes. It must be very hard, don’t you know, when your son is a silly. He is terribly mean.”
“You don’t begin to know how mean he is. He eats cockroaches alive. I gave him a dozen and he ate them all up.”
Without moving away from the door she sat down on the corner of a chair, cautiously, like a scullery maid, folded her hands on her knees and waited.
“It’s a weary life, Nastya,” pensively said the priest.
Unhurriedly and importantly she agreed with him:
“It certainly is.”
“And do you pray to God?”
“Of course I do. Only at night, in the morning there is too much work, I have no time. I must sweep, make up beds, put things in order, wash the dishes, get tea for Vasska[8], serve it to him, you know yourself how much work that is.”