‘Come, we’ve been talking nonsense, and there’s an end of it,’ pursued Ivan Afanasiitch, walking up and down the room, rubbing his hands, and, as it were, resuming his ancient rights. ‘Amen! and now I’d better have a pipe.’ Praskovia Ivanovna still did not move from her place.... ‘I see you are angry with me,’ said Pyetushkov. ‘I’ve offended you, perhaps. Well! well! forgive me generously.’ ‘How could you offend me, my good sir? No offence about it.... Only, please, sir,’ added Praskovia Ivanovna, bowing, ‘be so good as not to go on coming to us.’ ‘What?’ ‘It’s not for you, sir, to be friends with us, your honour. So, please, do us the favour ...’ Praskovia Ivanovna went on bowing. ‘What ever for?’ muttered the astounded Pyetushkov. ‘Oh, nothing, sir. For mercy’s sake ...’ ‘No, Praskovia Ivanovna, you must explain this! ...’ ‘Vassilissa asks you. She says, “I thank you, thank you very much, and from my heart; only for the future, your honour, give us up.”’ Praskovia Ivanovna bowed down almost to Pyetushkov’s feet. ‘Vassilissa, you say, begs me not to come?’ ‘Just so, your honour. When your honour came in to-day, and said what you did, that you didn’t wish, you said, to visit us any more, I felt relieved, sir, that I did; thinks I, Well, thank God, how nicely it’s all come about! But for that, I should have had hard work to bring my tongue to say it.... Be so good, sir.’ Pyetushkov turned red and pale almost at the same instant. Praskovia Ivanovna still went on bowing.... ‘Very good,’ Ivan Afanasiitch cried sharply. ‘Good-bye.’ He turned abruptly and put on his cap. ‘But the little bill, sir....’ ‘Send it ... my orderly shall pay you.’ Pyetushkov went with resolute steps out of the baker’s shop, and did not even look round. X A fortnight passed. At first Pyetushkov bore up in an extraordinary way. He went out, and visited his comrades, with the exception, of course, of Bublitsyn; but in spite of the exaggerated approbation of Onisim, he almost went out of his mind at last from wretchedness, jealousy, and ennui. Conversations with Onisim about Vassilissa were the only thing that afforded him some consolation. The conversation was always begun, ‘scratched up,’ by Pyetushkov; Onisim responded unwillingly. ‘It’s a strange thing, you know,’ Ivan Afanasiitch would say, for instance, as he lay on the sofa, while Onisim stood in his usual attitude, leaning against the door, with his hands folded behind his back, ‘when you come to think of it, what it was I saw in that girl. One would say that there was nothing unusual in her. It’s true she has a good heart. That one can’t deny her.’ ‘Good heart, indeed!’ Onisim would answer with displeasure.