"The boy was beaten because he was insolent. No one believed that he was a thief except you, you slut!"
"Slut yourself, madam! You are nothing better than a cow, if you will permit me to say so."
I listened to this quarrel as if it were music. My heart burned with hot tears of self-pity, and gratitude to Natalia. I held my breath in the effort to keep them back.
Then the master came slowly up to the attic, sat on a projecting beam near me, and said, smoothing his hair:
"Well, brother Pyeshkov, and so you had nothing to do with it?"
I turned my face away without speaking.
"All the same, your language was hideous," he went on. I announced quietly:
"As soon as I can get up I shall leave you."
He sat on in silence, smoking a cigarette. Looking fixedly at its end, he said in a low voice:
"What of it? That is your business. You are not a little boy any longer; you must look about and see what is the best thing for yourself."