“I’m not asking you what to tell them,” he retorted coldly, stretching himself out on the sofa. Chyenke scowled at him. She was out of breath. What could she do now? Shriek, weep, or throw the shears she was holding at his head, or her own? She threw the shears upon the floor, sprang up from her seat and began to pace about the room. She could hold back from shrieking. She knew that ultimately she would win out. But she felt an intense desire to wreak vengeance upon him in some way. She would have been delighted to—stick a few needles into him.... She lay down on the bed. Her head seethed with the most confused thoughts,—how best to avenge herself upon that man. The first decision she reached was to lie just as she was, fully dressed, all night long on the unmade bed. And he lay in a daze, unable to think. In his dream he spoke and fought with the whole world. There came back to him old, half-forgotten scenes of his early life, scenes in the various shops where he had been employed, Chashke.... “No,—such ideas she could take into her head!” A vast shop appeared before him, containing an army of employés, and he was the owner—and his heart began to throb more loudly. Chyenke had long before stopped thinking; her heart, however, from time to time, contracted with the bitterness of her unsated desire for revenge. She arose from the bed, prepared it for the night, undressed, and lay down again. She did not prepare _his_ bed. But soon it began to annoy her that he should lie as he did and not go to sleep. “Why are you letting the lamp burn? Is oil so cheap?” she asked, in no friendly tones. He did not move. This vexed her keenly. Her heart was again ready to burst, and she burned with a desire to make him feel her resentment. But she could think of nothing. She turned her face to the wall, lay with eyes open, thinking, thinking how she would heap upon him all the evil in the world, and how she would contradict him in every wish he expressed. The next moment she sprang up hastily from bed,—ran over to the table and put out the lamp. “Lie in darkness!” she scowled sharply, crawling back into bed. He did not move. “What do I care if he lies there like that?” she thought. “May he never get up again!” Yet she was vexed to death. She jumped up and in the dark began to make his bed. She worked angrily, jerking the sheet, tossing the pillow and pulling the blanket violently. He remained upon the sofa in the same position as before, motionless. He lay in thought, thus taking his revenge. Aha! He would not go to bed! Not he! He knew that she was boiling with rage. Let her learn a lesson! Was he, then, to work like a horse and yet have no say in the business, not to be able to do as he thought best?... No, _he_ was boss now, and let them all go to perdition!...