Porfiry Vladimirych was happy. He locked up the windows and doors that he might not hear, he drew down the curtains that he might not see. He went through the customary functions and duties which had no connection with the world of his imagination, in haste, almost with disgust. When the ever-drunken Prokhor rapped at his door and announced that dinner was served, he ran into the dining-room impatiently, hurriedly swallowed his three courses and disappeared again into his study. Something new showed in his manners--a mixture of timidity and derision, as if he both feared and defied the few people whom he met. He rose very early and immediately set to work. He cut down the time devoted to worship, said his prayers indifferently, without thinking of their meaning, crossed himself and went through the other gestures of worship mechanically and carelessly. Apparently even the notion of a hell with its complicated system of punishments was no longer present in his mind. Meanwhile Yevpraksia reveled in the satisfaction of carnal desires. Dancing between the clerk Ignat and the coachman Arkhip, and also casting glances at the red-faced carpenter Ilyusha, who was mending the cellars at the head of a gang of workmen, she did not notice what was going on in the manor-house. She thought the master was playing "a new comedy," and many a light remark about the master was passed in the jolly gatherings of the servants. But one day she happened to enter the dining-room when Yudushka was hurriedly despatching the remnants of roast goose, and suddenly a kind of dread fell upon her. Porfiry Vladimirych wore a greasy dressing-gown, through the holes of which the cotton interlining peeped out. He was pale, unkempt, and his face bristled with a many days' growth. "Dear master, what is it? What is the matter?" she turned to him in fright. Porfiry Vladimirych only smiled half sheepishly, half derisively, and the meaning of his smile was: "I'd like to see how you could get at me now." "Darling master, what is the matter? Tell me, what has happened to you?" repeated Yevpraksia. He rose, fixed on her a gaze brimming over with hatred, and said, pausing after each word: "If you, you hussy, ever dare--enter my study--I will kill you!" CHAPTER IV As a result of this scene Yudushka's life outwardly changed for the better. Distracted by no material hindrances, he gave himself completely over to his solitude, so that he did not even notice how the summer passed away.