"I say, what a teacher! Do you want your ears plucked?"
But to talk of "plucking" ears also appeared incorrect to me. One could "pluck" grass and flowers and nuts, but not ears. They tried to prove to me that ears could be plucked, but they did not convince me, and I said triumphantly:
"Anyhow, you have not plucked my ears."
All around me I saw much cruel insolence, filthy shamelessness. It was far worse here than in the Kunavin streets, which were full of "houses of resort" and "street-walkers." Beneath the filth and brutality in Kunavin there was a something which made itself felt, and which seemed to explain it all—a strenuous, half-starved existence and hard work. But here they were overfed and led easy lives, and the work went on its way without fuss or worry. A corrosive, fretting weariness brooded over all.
My life was hard enough, anyhow, but I felt it still harder when grandmother came to see me. She would appear from the black flight of steps, enter the kitchen, cross herself before the icon, and then bow low to her younger sister. That bow bent me down like a heavy weight, and seemed to smother me.
"Ah, Akulina, is it you?" was my mistress's cold and negligent greeting to grandmother.
I should not have recognized grandmother. Her lips modestly compressed, her face changed out of knowledge, she set herself quietly on a bench near the door, keeping silence like a guilty creature, except when she answered her sister softly and submissively. This was torture to me, and I used to say angrily: "What are you sitting there for?"
Winking at me kindly, she replied:
"You be quiet. You are not master here.".
"He is always meddling in matters which do not concern him, however we beat him or scold him," and the mistress was launched on her complaints.