"For mercy's sake, mother dear! I have no grievance against you. Even if the coach belonged to this estate----" "It is my coach--mine! It does not belong to Dubrovino, it belongs to me! Don't you dare to say it--do you hear me?" "Yes, mother dear. Don't forget us, dear heart. Simply, you know, without ceremony. We will come to you, you will come to us, as becomes good kinsfolk." "Are you seated, children? Coachman, go on!" cried Arina Petrovna, hardly able to restrain herself. The coach quivered and rolled off quickly down the road. Yudushka stood on the porch waving his handkerchief and calling until the coach had entirely disappeared from view: "As becomes good kinsfolk! We will come to you, and you to us--as becomes good kinsfolk!" BOOK III FAMILY ACCOUNTS SETTLED CHAPTER I It had never occurred to Arina Petrovna that there might come a time when she would become "one mouth too many." Now that moment had stolen upon her just when for the first time in her life her physical and moral strength was undermined. Such moments always arrive suddenly. Though one may long have been on the verge of breaking down, one may still hold out and stave off the end, till suddenly the last blow strikes from a quarter least expected. To be aware of its approach and dodge it, is difficult. One has to resign oneself without complaint, for it is the very blow that in an instant shatters one who till recently has been hale and healthy. When Arina Petrovna took up her abode in Dubrovino, after having broken with Yudushka, she had labored under great difficulties. But then, at least, she had known that Pavel Vladimirych, though looking askance at her intrusion, was still a well-to-do man to whom another morsel meant little. Now things were very different. She stood at the head of a household that counted every crumb. And she knew the value of crumbs, having spent all her life in the country in constant intercourse with peasants and having assimilated the peasant's notions of the harm a "superfluous mouth" does to a house in which stores are already scanty.