"That's the snow," he said; then added, crossly: "What d'you call early? I've come, as usual, when it's time. Can't you see how dark it is, you little goose?"
"It's dark here in the morning; and what are you shouting at?"
"I'm shouting, as you call it, because you talk like the police. 'You're very early—Where are you going?—What have you got there?' What business is it of yours?"
Masha looked searchingly at him, and said, reproachfully:
"How high and mighty you've grown!"
"Oh, go to the devil!" snarled Lunev, and sat down at the table.
Masha felt insulted, and turned away. Looking small and delicate, she shook back her dark hair from time to time, coughing and blinking when the smoke from the samovar she was tending irritated her eyes. Her face was thin, and the eyes shone all the more brightly for the dark circles round them. She was like the flowers that spring up amid grass and weeds in an overgrown garden.
Ilya looked at her and thought how the child lived all alone in this underground cave, working like a full-grown woman, how there was not, and perhaps never would be, any joy in life for her, condemned always to live in this straitened, dirty place. But he might live now as he had always desired, in peace and cleanliness. The thought filled him with happiness. Then at once he felt his unkindness to Masha.
"Masha!" he cried.
"Well, what now, cross-patch?"