"You must speak properly to her and to us all. There must be no insolence." Then he said to his wife, impatiently, "Don't disturb me with your nonsense!" "What do you mean--nonsense? If your relatives--" "The devil take my relatives!" cried the master, rushing away. I myself was not pleased to think that they were relatives of grandmother. Experience had taught me that relatives behave worse to one another than do strangers. Their gossip is more spiteful, since they know more of the bad and ridiculous sides of one another than strangers, and they fall out and fight more often. I liked my master. He used to shake back his hair with a graceful movement, and tuck it behind his ears, and he reminded me somehow of "Good Business." He often laughed merrily; his gray eyes looked kindly upon me, and funny wrinkles played divertingly about his aquiline nose. "You have abused each other long enough, wild fowl," he would say to his mother and his wife, showing his small, closely set teeth in a gentle smile. The mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law abused each other all day. I was surprised to see how swiftly and easily they plunged into a quarrel. The first thing in the morning, with their hair unbrushed and their clothes unfastened, they would rush about the rooms as if the house were on fire, and they fussed about all day, only pausing to take breath in the dining-room at dinner, tea, or supper. They ate and drank till they could eat and drink no more, and at dinner they talked about the food and disputed lethargically, preparing for a big quarrel. No matter what it was that the mother-in-law had prepared, the daughter-in-law was sure to say: "My mother did not cook it this way." "Well, if that is so, she did it badly, that's all." "On the contrary, she did it better." "Well, you had better go back to your mother." "I am mistress here." "And who am I?" Here the master would intervene. "That will do, wild fowl! What is the matter with you? Are you mad?" For some inexplicable reason everything about that house was peculiar and mirth-provoking. The way from the kitchen to the dining-room lay through a small closet, the only one in the house, through which they carried the samovar and the food into the dining-room. It was the cause of merry witticisms and often of laughable misunderstandings. I slept in the kitchen, between that door and the one leading to the stairs. My head was hot from the heat of the cooking-stove, but the draft from the stairs blew on my feet. When I retired to bed, I used to take all the mats off the floor and wrap them round my feet. The large reception-room, with its two pier-glasses, its pictures in gilt frames, its pair of card-tables, and its dozen Vienna chairs, was a dreary, depressing place. The small drawing-room was simply packed with a medley of soft furniture, with wedding presents, silver articles, and a tea-service. It was adorned with three lamps, one larger than the other two.