"Good Lord! I mustn't speak now, I suppose!" the story-teller complained; but Victor encouraged her.
"Go on, Mother! What is there to hinder you? We are all your own people, after all."
I could never understand why one should talk shamelessly before one's own people.
The elder son bore himself toward his mother with contemptuous pity, and avoided being alone with her, for if that happened, she would surely overwhelm him with complaints against his wife, and would never fail to ask him for money. He would hastily press into her hand a ruble or so or several pieces of small silver.
"It is not right, Mother; take the money. I do not grudge it to you, but it is unjust."
"But I want it for beggars, for candles when I go to church."
"Now, where will you find beggars there? You will end by spoiling Victor."
"You don't love your brother. It is a great sin on your part."
He would go out, waving her away.
Victor's manner to his mother was coarse and derisive. He was very greedy, and he was always hungry. On Sundays his mother used to bake custards, and she always hid a few of them in a vessel under the couch on which I slept. When Victor left the dinner-table he would get them out and grumble: