His mother-in-law, rushing into the room, cried: “What is the matter? What have you done to her?” The whites of her eyes glittered in the dark, and her whole demeanor expressed a thirst for revenge and complete redress. “What have you done to her?”
“I have done absolutely nothing to her! And I do not know, absolutely do not know, why she started all this comedy! She is simply an unbalanced woman, your daughter is, absolutely unbalanced!”
“You have offended her?”
“Neither by word nor intention! I came into the drawing-room and found her moaning at the window; all at once, without provocation, she began to laugh, then to cry,” said Iván Mikhailovich, shrugging his shoulders and gesticulating, and Maria Petrovna, whom Iván Mikhailovich, in moments of exasperation, sometimes called “the old witch,” did not believe him, and insistently demanded an explanation: “Don’t you tell me that. Where did you get it that she is unbalanced? We never had any one of an unbalanced mind in our family—every one was healthy and sane. What have you been doing to her?”
“All right, then! All right, if they were all sane and normal! I am glad to hear it!” said Iván Mikhailovich angrily, and speedily left the house. He went to the club, where he played cards, playing high from pure spite, and losing also from pure spitefulness. In the mean time Maria Petrovna walked around with a pained expression on her face, not being able to understand what had passed between the two. Several times she approached Xenia Pavlovna, and began:
“Why is all this quarreling going on in the house lately? What is the reason for it? Have you found out anything wrong about him, or what?”
“I have found out nothing!”
“Has he offended you in any way?”
“No, no, what makes you think so?”
“You do wrong to hide it from me. It will leak out somehow, do not fear. I shall find out everything, my lady!” Then she suddenly changed her tone and approached the matter from a different side: