The stranger sat down on the bench. "Well, have you not cooked anything?" That simply roiled Matréna. "I have cooked, but not for you. You seem to have drunk away your senses, I see. You went to get a fur coat, and come back without your caftan, and have even brought some kind of a naked tramp with you. I have no supper for you drunkards." "Stop, Matréna! What is the use of wagging your tongue without any sense? First ask what kind of a man it is--" "Tell me what you did with the money." Semén stuck his hand into the caftan, took out the bill, and opened it before her. "Here is the money. Trifónov has not paid me,--he promised to give it to me to-morrow." That enraged Matréna even more: he had bought no fur coat, and the only caftan they had he had put on a naked fellow, and had even brought him along. She grabbed the bill from the table, and ran to put it away, and said: "I have no supper. One cannot feed all the drunkards." "Oh, Matréna, hold your tongue. First hear what I have to say--" "Much sense shall I hear from a drunken fool. With good reason did I object to marrying you, a drunkard. My mother gave me some linen, and you spent it on drinks; you went to buy a fur coat, and spent that, too." Semén wanted to explain to his wife that he had spent twenty kopeks only, and wanted to tell her that he had found the man; but Matréna began to break in with anything she could think of, and to speak two words at once. Even what had happened ten years before, she brought up to him now. Matréna talked and talked, and jumped at Semén, and grabbed him by the sleeve. "Give me my jacket. That is all I have left, and you have taken it from me and put it on yourself. Give it to me, you freckled dog,--may the apoplexy strike you!" Semén began to take off the bodice; as he turned back his arm, his wife gave the bodice a jerk, and it ripped at the seam. Matréna grabbed the jacket, threw it over her head, and made for the door. She wanted to go out, but stopped: her heart was doubled, for she wanted to have her revenge, and also to find out what kind of a man he was. IV. Matréna stopped and said: "If he were a good man, he would not be naked; but, as it is, he has not even a shirt on him. If he meant anything good, you would tell me where you found that dandy." "I am telling you: as I was walking along, I saw him sitting at the chapel, without any clothes, and almost frozen. It is not summer, and he was all naked. God sent me to him, or he would have perished. Well, what had I to do? All kinds of things happen! I picked him up and dressed him, and brought him here. Calm yourself! It is a sin, Matréna. We shall all die."