In the evening Senka Tschischik, the herald of misfortune to the inhabitants of the court, was able to report another battle having been fought at the Orloffs'.
When Grischka had beaten his wife black and blue, he disappeared sometimes for the whole night, not even coming back to the house for Sunday. Finally he would return, dirty, and with bloodshot eyes, to his home. Matrona would receive him in silence, wearing a severe expression, but full of secret pity. She knew that under these circumstances he would like nothing better than a drop of spirits, and already had a bottle of vodka prepared for him.
"Come, pour me out a glass!" he cried in a hoarse voice, and after swallowing two, he would sit down to work.
The whole of that day he would be troubled with pricks of conscience, which often became so severe and painful that he could not bear himself. He would throw down his work, and uttering wild words of self-reproach would pace up and down the room, or would throw himself on the bed. Motrja would give him time to get over this attack of remorse, and then they would make it up again.
At first these reconciliations were full of much that was tender and sweet, but after a time this delight disappeared entirely, and they simply made it up, because it was impossible to remain a whole week—that is to say, till the following Saturday—without speaking to each other.
"Are you going to destroy yourself, then, altogether with that vodka?" sighed Motrja.
"It's possible," replied Grischka, spitting on one side, with the look of a man to whom it was quite immaterial whether he destroyed himself or not "And you will end by running away from me?..." he continued generally, exaggerating the picture of the future, and looking searchingly into her eyes.
For some time past she had cast down her eyes whenever he had spoken in this way; though at first she had never done so. Grischka, when he noticed this, frowned threateningly, and ground his teeth ominously. As a matter of fact Matrona was just now doing her very best to win back his heart She visited the fortune-teller's and wise women, and brought back with her all sorts of charms and spells in order to gain this object When none of these had any effect she paid for a mass in honour of the martyr St Boniface, the patron saint against drunkenness; during the whole mass she knelt in a dark corner of the church crying bitterly, whilst her trembling lips moved in wordless prayer.
But ever more and more often her soul became possessed with a cold feeling of hatred against Grischka, which awoke within her dark thoughts. She felt ever less and less pity towards this man, who three years ago, with his joyful laugh and his loving words, had given to her whole life such full delight and pleasure.... Thus lived, from one day's end to another, these two children of men, who at heart were neither of them evilly disposed; whilst they waited with fatalistic simplicity for something to happen, which would break into and dispel their present meaningless, and terrible life.