Ulita left the room, and for a while oppressive silence reigned. Then Arina Petrovna rose from her seat and made sure Ulita was not eavesdropping.
"Andrey Osipych, have you spoken to him yet about the orphans?" she asked the doctor.
"Yes, I did."
"Well?"
"There was no change. 'When I get well' he kept on saying, 'I will make my will and write the notes.'"
Silence, heavier than before, filled the room. The girls took the crocheting from the table, and their trembling hands worked one row after the other. Arina Petrovna heaved a deep sigh of dejection. The doctor paced up and down the room and whistled, "Head over heels, head over heels."
"But did you try to drive the matter home to him, doctor?"
"Well, I said to him: 'You'll be a scoundrel if you don't make a definite provision for the orphans.' Could I make it clearer? Yes, mother, you certainly slipped up. If you had called me in a month ago, I would have given him a good bleeding and I would have seen to it that he made his will. But now everything will go to Yudushka, the lawful heir. It certainly will."
"Oh, grandmother, what will become of us?" said the older of the two girls, plaintively and almost in tears. "What is uncle doing to us?"
The girls were Anninka and Lubinka, the daughters of Anna Vladimirovna Ulanova, to whom Arina Petrovna had once "thrown a bone."