"Yes?" he asked turning slightly pale. "Fi, how nasty!" she answered, looking at him in bewilderment. Porfiry Vladimirych turned still paler and hissed through his teeth: "I suppose, we must have hussars!" then crossed himself and shuffled out of the room. In about fifteen minutes he returned and resumed his jesting as if nothing had happened. "Well?" he asked. "Are you going to stop at Voplino? Will you go and say good-by to your old granny? Do, my dear, do. It is very good of you to have thought of your grandma. Never forget your kinsfolk, my dear, especially those who, in a manner of speaking, were willing to die for us." They attended the mass and requiem services, ate some kutya in the church, then came home, ate some more kutya and sat down at the tea table. Porfiry Vladimirych, as if to spite her, sipped his tea more slowly than usual, and dragged his words out wearisomely, discoursing in the intervals between gulps. About ten o'clock they finished tea, and Anninka said imploringly: "May I leave now, uncle?" "And what about a bite? What about dinner? Did you really think your uncle would let you leave on an empty stomach? Nay, nay. We are not used to such things at Golovliovo. Why, mother dear would have refused to look at me again if she knew I let my own niece go without a morsel. Don't dare think of it. Why, it's impossible." Again she had to surrender. An hour and a half passed, but there were no signs of preparation for dinner. Everybody was going about his business. Yevpraksia, her bunch of keys jingling, was seen in the yard darting between the pantry and the cellar. Porfiry Vladimirych was explaining things to his clerk, wearying him with meaningless orders and incessantly slapping his own thighs in an effort to while away the time. Anninka, left to herself, walked up and down the dining-room, looked at the clock, counted her steps, then the ticks of the clock--one, two, three. At times she glanced out of the window and noticed the puddles were growing larger and larger. Finally knives, forks and plates began to rattle. The butler Stepan entered the dining-room and spread a cloth upon the table. It seemed as if a part of Yudushka's idle bustle had communicated itself to him. He shuffled the plates sluggishly, breathed on the drinking glasses, and examined them, holding them up to the light. Dinner began just at one o'clock. "Well, so you are going," Porfiry Vladimirych opened the conversation, in a manner befitting the occasion. Before him was a plate of soup, but he did not touch it. He looked at Anninka so affectionately that the tip of his nose turned red. Anninka swallowed her soup hastily. At last he took up his spoon and dipped it in the soup, but changed his mind, and placed it back on the tablecloth.