"You're lying! Why do you lie?"
He became enraged, showed his teeth and threatened me with his fist.
"You're a liar and a rascal," he shouted.
I was only astonished. What is he saying there about naked women? A man works from three o'clock in the morning till ten at night and then lies down to sleep with bones aching like a beggar's in winter—and he talks of women. Such were my thoughts.
Once I went into the ante-room for yeast. It was a dark room in the cellar, opposite the bakery. I found the door unlocked and a lantern burning. I opened the door and saw Misha crawling on the ground on his stomach, and crying out:
"Send them away, I implore Thee, Lord! Send them away! Deliver me!"
Of course, I immediately went out, but I could not guess what it was about.
He always spoke hatefully and insultingly about women, called all womankind vulgar and in real peasant fashion spat at them, clutching the air with his fingers as if in his mind's eye he were tearing and pulling a woman's body apart.
I could not bear to hear him talk. I remembered my own wife and our happy tears the first night of our marriage, and the quiet, inner wonder with each other, and our great joy. Is it not Thy sweet gift to man, O Lord? I remembered Tatiana's good heart and her simplicity, and I was hurt to tears for womankind. I thought to myself:
"When the Abbot will call me for an interview, I shall tell him everything."