"I understand that too, dearest mother. Your excessive kindness caused you to commit a grave mistake. At the time you bought him the house you ought to have made him give you such a document then." "Yes, that was a blunder." "At that time, in his joy, he would have signed any document. But you, dearest, in the kindness of your heart--goodness, what a mistake! What a mistake!" "Don't talk of it any more. Why didn't you speak up before it was too late? Now you are ready to blame everything on your mother, but when it comes to business, you are not there. However, it isn't the document I have in mind. I can make him sign it even now. Papa, I suppose, isn't going to die at once. Until his death the blockhead must live on something. In case he refuses to sign, we can chase him out and bid him wait for papa's death. No, what I want to know is, do you dislike my idea of giving him the Vologda estate?" "He will squander away the village, darling, as he did the house." "If he does, let him blame himself." "He'll come back to you, again, to no one else." "Oh, no, I won't stand for it. I won't let him come near my threshold. There won't be a drink of water for him in my house. And people won't condemn me for it, nor will God punish me. To squander away first a house, then an estate! Am I his slave? Is he the only one I have to provide for? Have I not other children?" "Still, it is to you that he will come. Isn't he brazen-faced enough to do that, darling mamma?" "I tell you, I won't let him come near my threshold. Why do you sit there croaking, 'he'll come, he'll come?' I won't let him in." Arina Petrovna grew silent and fixed her gaze on the window. She herself vaguely realized that the Vologda estate would only temporarily free her from "the horrid creature," that in the end he would dispose of it, too, and would return to her again, and that as a mother she could not refuse him a corner in her house. But the thought that the odious fellow would always be with her, that even though locked up in the counting-house he would be preying on her imagination like a spook, was so appalling that she shuddered involuntarily. "Not for the world!" she exclaimed, striking the table with her fist and leaping to her feet. Meanwhile, Porfiry Vladimirych kept on staring at "mother dear" and shaking his head rhythmically in token of condolence. "I see you are angry, dearest mamma," he said at last in a tone so sugared that he seemed to be getting ready to tickle Arina Petrovna. "What would you have me do? Dance a jig?" "Excuse me, darling, but what do the Scriptures say about patience? 'In patience,' it says, 'possess ye your souls,' 'In patience'--that's the word. Do you think God does not see? He sees everything, mother dear. We perhaps don't suspect anything, we sit here proposing this and planning that, while He may already have disposed. Oh, dearest mamma, how unjust you are to me."