A hot whirlwind swept round Ilya. He rejoiced to oppose this fat, smooth-shaved, wet-lipped man, and see him grow angry. The consciousness that the Avtonomovs felt embarrassed before their guests filled him with malicious pleasure.
He grew calmer, and the impulse to have matters out with these people, to say insolent things to them and drive them to fury, swelled up in his breast, and raised him to a mental height that was at once pleasant and terrifying. Every moment he felt calmer, and his voice sounded more and more assured.
"Call me what you like," he said to Travkin. "You are an educated man. I hold to my opinion, and I say, 'can the well fed understand the hungry?' The hungry man may be a thief, but the well fed was a thief before him."
"Kirik Nikodimovitch!" shouted Travkin in fury. "What does this mean? I—I cannot——"
At this moment Tatiana Vlassyevna slipped her arm through his and drew him away, saying loudly:
"Come along, the little rolls you like are here, with herrings and hard-boiled eggs, and grated onions with melted butter."
"Ha! I ought not to let this pass," said Travkin, still excited, and smacked his lips. His wife looked contemptuously at Ilya, and took her husband's other arm, saying: "Don't excite yourself, Anton, over such foolishness!"
Tatiana continued to quiet her most honoured guest. "Pickled sturgeon with tomato——"
"That was not right, young man," said Travkin suddenly, in a tone both reproachful and magnanimous, standing firm and turning round towards Ilya. "That was not right! you should know how to value things—you need to understand them."
"But I don't understand," cried Ilya, "that's just what I'm talking about. How does it come about that Petrusha Filimonov is the lord of life and death?"