with it good-humoured, girlish laughter; he caught a final glimpse of Mr. Tiutiurov’s hat; the two outer horses turned their heads on each side, jauntily stepping over the short, green grass ... the coachman gave a whistle of approbation and warning, the carriage disappeared behind some willows. A long while poor Pyetushkov remained standing still. ‘I’m a poor lonely creature,’ he whispered at last ... ‘alone in the world.’ A little boy in tatters stopped before him, looked timidly at him, held out his hand ... ‘For Christ’s sake, good gentleman.’ Pyetushkov pulled out a copper. ‘For your loneliness, poor orphan,’ he said with effort, and he walked back to the baker’s shop. On the threshold of Vassilissa’s room Ivan Afanasiitch stopped. ‘Yes,’ he thought, ‘these are my friends. Here is my family, this is it.... And here Bublitsyn and there Bublitsyn.’ Vassilissa was sitting with her back to him, winding worsted, and carelessly singing to herself; she was wearing a striped cotton gown; her hair was done up anyhow.... The room, insufferably hot, smelt of feather beds and old rags; jaunty, reddish-brown ‘Prussians’ scurried rapidly here and there across the walls; on the decrepit chest of drawers, with holes in it where the locks should have been, beside a broken jar, lay a woman’s shabby slipper.... Kozlov’s poem was still where it had fallen on the floor.... Pyetushkov shook his head, folded his arms, and went away. He was hurt. At home he called for his things to dress. Onisim slouched off after his better coat. Pyetushkov had a great desire to draw Onisim into conversation, but Onisim preserved a sullen silence. At last Ivan Afanasiitch could hold out no longer. ‘Why don’t you ask me where I’m going?’ ‘Why, what do I want to know where you’re going for?’ ‘What for? Why, suppose some one comes on urgent business, and asks, “Where’s Ivan Afanasiitch?” And then you can tell him, “Ivan Afanasiitch has gone here or there.”’ ‘Urgent business.... But who ever does come to you on urgent business?’ ‘Why, are you beginning to be rude again? Again, hey?’ Onisim turned away, and fell to brushing the coat. ‘Really, Onisim, you are a most disagreeable person.’ Onisim looked up from under his brows at his master. ‘And you ‘re always like this. Yes, positively always.’ Onisim smiled. ‘But what’s the good of my asking you where you’re going, Ivan Afanasiitch? As though I didn’t know! To the girl at the baker’s shop!’ ‘There, that’s just where you’re wrong! that’s just where you’re mistaken! Not to her at all. I don’t intend going to see the girl at the baker’s shop any more.’ Onisim dropped his eyelids and brandished the brush. Pyetushkov waited for his approbation; but his servant remained speechless. ‘It’s not the proper thing,’ Pyetushkov went on in a severe voice--‘it’s unseemly.... Come, tell me what you think?’ ‘What am I to think? It’s for you to say. What business have I to think?’