“‘How dare you insult a respectable father--a respectable girl? When did you sleep with her, you spawn of the sucker, you dog, you hound, you----?’ said Aukoudim shaking with passion. (Philka told us all this later). “‘I’ll not only not marry your daughter, but I’ll take good care that nobody marries her, not even Mikita Grigoritch, for she’s a disreputable girl. We had a fine time together, she and I, all last autumn. I don’t want her at any price. All the money in the world wouldn’t make me take her.’ “Then the fellow went and had high jinks for a while. All the town was as one man in sending up a cry against him. He got a lot of other fellows round him, for he had a heap of money. Three months he had of it. Such recklessness as you never heard of. Every penny went. “‘I want to see the end of this money. I’ll sell the house; everything; then I’ll ’list or go on the tramp.’ “He was drunk from morning to evening, and went about with a carriage and pair. “The girls liked him well, I tell you, for he played the guitar very nicely.” “Then it is true that he had been too well with this Akoulka?” “Wait, wait, can’t you? I had just buried my father. My mother lived by baking gingerbread. We got our livelihood by working for Aukoudim; barely enough to eat, a precious hard life it was. We had a bit of land the other side of the woods, and grew corn there; but when my father died I went on a spree. I made my mother give me money; but I had to give her a good hiding first.” “You were very wrong to beat her; a great sin that?” “Sometimes I was drunk the whole blessed day. We had a house that was just tumbling to pieces with dry rot, still it was our own; we were as near famished as could be; for weeks together we had nothing but rags to chew. Mother nearly killed me with one stupid trick or another, but I didn’t care a curse. Philka Marosof and I were always together day and night. ‘Play the guitar to me,’ he’d say, ‘and I’ll lie in bed the while. I’ll throw money to you, for I’m the richest chap in the world!’ The fellow could not speak without lying. There was only one thing. He wouldn’t touch a thing if it had been stolen. ‘I’m no thief, I’m an honest man. Let’s go and daub Akoulka’s door with pitch,[5] for I won’t have her marry Mikita Grigoritch, I’ll stick to that.’ “The old man had long meant to give his daughter to this Mikita Grigoritch. He was a man well on in life, in trade too, and wore spectacles. When he heard the story of Akoulka’s bad conduct, he said to the old father, ‘That would be a terrible disgrace for me, Aukoudim Trophimtych; on the whole, I’ve made up my mind not to marry; it’s to late.’ “So we went and daubed Akoulka’s door all over with pitch. When we’d done that her folks beat her so that they nearly killed her.