The reader will now readily understand the perturbation of mind that overtook the steward Gavrila after his conversation with his mistress. "My lady," he thought, as he sat at the window, "favors Gerasim, to be sure"--(Gavrila was well aware of this, and that was why he himself looked on him with an indulgent eye)--"still he is a speechless creature. I could not, indeed, put it before the mistress that Gerasim's courting Tatiana. But, after all, it's true enough; he's a queer sort of husband. But on the other hand, that devil, God forgive me, has only got to find out they're marrying Tatiana to Kapiton, he'll smash up everything in the house, 'pon my soul! There's no reasoning with him; why, he's such a devil, God forgive my sins, there's no getting over him nohow . . . 'pon my soul!" Kapiton's entrance broke the thread of Gavrila's reflections. The dissipated shoemaker came in, his hands behind him, and lounging carelessly against a projecting angle of the wall, near the door, crossed his right foot in front of his left, and tossed his head, as much as to say, "What do you want?" Gavrila looked at Kapiton, and drummed with his fingers on the window-frame. Kapiton merely screwed up his leaden eyes a little, but he did not look down; he even grinned slightly, and passed his hand over his whitish locks which were sticking up in all directions. "Well, here I am. What is it?" "You're a pretty fellow," said Gavrila, and paused. "A pretty fellow you are, there's no denying!" Kapiton only twitched his little shoulders. "Are you any better, pray?" he thought to himself. "Just look at yourself, now, look at yourself," Gavrila went on reproachfully; "now, whatever do you look like?" Kapiton serenely surveyed his shabby, tattered coat and his patched trousers, and with special attention stared at his burst boots, especially the one on the tiptoe of which his right foot so gracefully poised, and he fixed his eyes again on the steward. "Well?" "Well?" repeated Gavrila. "Well? And then you say well? You look like Old Nick himself, God forgive my saying so, that's what you look like." Kapiton blinked rapidly. "Go on abusing me, go on, if you like, Gavrila Andreitch," he thought to himself again. "Here you've been drunk again," Gavrila began, "drunk again, haven't you? Eh? Come, answer me!" "Owing to the weakness of my health, I have exposed myself to spirituous beverages, certainly," replied Kapiton. "Owing to the weakness of your health! . . . They let you off too easy, that's what it is; and you've been apprenticed in Petersburg. . . Much you learned in your apprenticeship! You simply eat your bread in idleness."