I swiftly jumped on his back, and broke the pane of glass over the door; but when I bent down, the mistress hit me over the head with the blade of the knife. However, I succeeded in opening the door, and the master, dragging his wife into the dining-room after a struggle, took the knife away from her. As I sat in the kitchen rubbing my bruised head, I soon came to the conclusion that I had suffered for nothing. The knife was so blunt that it would hardly cut a piece of bread, and it would certainly never have made an incision in any one's skin. Besides, there had been no need for me to climb on the master's back. I could have broken the glass by standing on a chair, and in any case it would have been easier for a grown person to have unfastened the hook, since his arms would have been longer. After that episode the quarrels in the house ceased to alarm me.
The brothers used to sing in the church choir; sometimes they used to sing softly over their work. The elder would begin in a baritone:
"The ring, which was the maiden's heart,
I cast from me into the sea."
And the younger would join with his tenor:
"And I with that very ring
Her earthly joy did ruin."
The mistress would murmur from the nursery:
"Have you gone out of your minds? Baby is asleep," or: "How can you, Vassia, a married man, be singing about girls? Besides, the bell will ring for vespers in a minute."
"What's the matter now? We are only singing a church tune."
But the mistress intimated that it was out of place to sing church tunes here, there, and everywhere. Besides, and she pointed eloquently to the little door.
"We shall have to change our quarters, or the devil knows what will become of us," said the master.