"I suppose you got it good and hard afterwards." "No, not a bit. But he kept spitting all day and muttering to himself, 'The rascals!' Of course we made believe he didn't mean us." "Let me tell you, granny, he is afraid of you." "Of me! I'm not a scarecrow to frighten him." "I'm sure he's scared of you. He thinks you'll put a curse on him. He's desperately afraid of curses." Arina Petrovna became lost in thought. At first the idea passed through her mind: "What if I really should put a curse on him--just take and curse him?" But the thought was instantly replaced by a more pressing question, "What is Yudushka doing now? What tricks is he playing upstairs? He must be up to one of his usual tricks." Finally a happy idea struck her. "Volodya," she said, "you, dear heart, are light on your feet. Why shouldn't you go softly and listen to what's going on up there?" "Gladly, granny." Volodya tiptoed toward the doors and disappeared through them. "What made you come over to us to-day?" Arina Petrovna continued with her questioning. "We meant to come a long time ago, grandma, but today Ulita sent a messenger to say the doctor had been here and uncle was going to die, if not to-day, then surely to-morrow." "Tell me, is there any talk among you about the heritage?" "We keep talking about it the whole day, granny. Papa tells us how it used to be before grandpa's time. He even remembers Goriushkino, granny. 'See now,' he says, 'if Auntie Varvara Mikhailovna had no children, then Goriushkino would be ours. And God knows,' he says, 'who the children's father is. But let us not judge others. We see a mote in the eye of our neighbor, but fail to notice a beam in our own. That's how the world goes, brother.'" "Nonsense, nonsense. Auntie was married, was she not? Even if there had been anything before that, the marriage made it all straight." "That's true, grandma, and each time we go past Goriushkino, he brings up the same old tale: 'Grandma Natalya Vladimirovna,' he says, 'brought Goriushkino as a dowry. By all rights it should have stayed in the family. But your deceased grandfather gave it to sister as a dot. And what wonderful watermelons,' he says, 'used to grow at Goriushkino! Twenty pounds each. That's the kind of watermelons that grew there!'" "Twenty pounds, bosh! I never heard of such melons. Well, and what are his intentions about Dubrovino?"