"Well, my friend, the strength comes if such is the Lord's will. You know what it says in the Scriptures: 'Bear one another's burdens.' It seems that our Heavenly Father has chosen me to bear the burdens of my family."
Arina Petrovna shut her eyes, so delightful was this vision of the family finding their tables covered for them and of her toiling for them and bearing their burdens.
"Yes, my friend," she said after a minute's pause, "it's a hard life I lead in my old age. I have provided for my children, and it is time for me to rest. It's no joke—four thousand souls! At my age to take care of such an estate, to have an eye on everybody and everything, to run back and forth! As for all those bailiffs and managers, they look you straight in the eye, but, believe me, they are the most faithless kind. And you," she interrupted herself, turning to Pavel, "what are you digging in your nose for?"
"What have I to do with it?" snarled Pavel Vladimirych, disturbed in the very midst of his absorbing occupation.
"What do you mean? After all, he's your father. You might find a word of pity for him."
"Well—a father! A father like any other father. He has been that way for ten years. You always make things unpleasant for me."
"Why in the world should I, my boy? I am your mother. Here is Porfisha. He has found words of affection and pity for me as befits a good son, but you don't even look at your mother properly. You look at her out of the corner of your eye, as if she were not your mother, but your foe. Please don't bite me."
"Well, what——"
"Stop! Hold your tongue for a minute. Let your mother say a word. Do you remember the commandment, 'Honor thy father and thy mother, and all will be well with thee?' Am I to understand that you don't wish to be well?"
Pavel Vladimirych kept silence and looked at his mother in perplexity.