“You, Nastasia Philippovna, can make even a saint lose patience, by God! And the child you seem to have forgotten? For you is it wholly immaterial whether he is brought up an honest man or a scoundrel? And I could bet my head that he would be brought up by her a scoundrel, rascal, and--scoundrel.” “Grisha!” “I ask you, for God’s sake, not to irritate me! And where did you get this devilish habit of contradicting? ‘She is so lonely.’ And are _we_ not lonely? The heartless woman that you are, Nastasia Philippovna! And why the devil did I marry you!” The heartless woman broke into tears, and her husband immediately begged her pardon, declaring that only a born fool could pay any attention to the words of such an old ass as he was. Gradually she became calmer and asked: “What does Talonsky say?” “And what makes you think that he is such a clever fellow?” Gregory Aristarchovich again flew into a passion. “He says that everything depends on how the court will look at it.... Something new, is it not, as if we did not know without his telling that everything depends on how the court will look at it! Of course it matters little to him--what does he care?--he will have his bark and then safely go his way. If I had _my_ way, it would go ill with all these empty talkers--” But here Nastasia Philippovna shut the dining-room door and Valia did not hear the end of the conversation. But he lay for a long time with open eyes, trying to understand what sort of woman it was who wished to take him away from his home and ruin him. On the next day he waited from early morning expecting his auntie to ask him if he wished to go to his mother; but auntie did not ask. Neither did his uncle. Instead of this, they both gazed at Valia as if he were dangerously ill and would soon die; they caressed him and brought him large books with colored pictures. The woman did not call any more, but it seemed to Valia that she must be lurking outside the door watching for him, and that as soon as he would pass the threshold she would seize him and carry him out into a black and dismal distance where cruel monsters were wriggling and breathing fire.