"So, I see, you live with uncle, but you are always alone?"
"Yes, as good as alone. Unless he sometimes wishes to play cards. Well, then we play cards. But even then he often stops in the middle of the game, puts the cards away and begins to talk. And I look at him. It was much livelier when Arina Petrovna was alive. When she was around he was afraid to talk too much, because the old woman would often cut him short. But now the liberties he takes are the limit."
"Well, you see, Yevpraksia, that's just the horror of it. It is frightful when a man talks and does not know what he says, why he talks and whether he'll ever get through. Doesn't it scare you?"
Yevpraksia looked at her as if struck by a new, wonderful idea.
"You're not the only one," she said. "Many people around here don't like him for the same thing."
"Is that so?"
"Yes. Even the servants. Not one of them can stay here long. He changes them almost every month. The clerks, too. And all on account of that."
"He annoys them?"
"Terribly. The drunkards—they stay because drunkards don't hear. You may blow a bugle, but it's as if they had their ears stuffed. But the trouble is, he doesn't like drunkards."
"Oh, Yevpraksia, and he is trying to persuade me to stay here."