Motrja blinked her eyes, and was silent "Have you nothing to say about it? Well, well! It's better to be silent.... It's better for you!" he added threateningly. As the evening hour approached, he grew more and more excited. He would speak to her over and over again of his intention to get drunk. He knew only too well how painful it was to her to hear such words, and he noticed how she went about in obstinate silence, with a cold glance in her grey eyes, attending to her duties in the cellar; and this made him feel all the more furious. In the evening Senka Tschischik, the herald of misfortune to the inhabitants of the court, was able to report another battle having been fought at the Orloffs'. When Grischka had beaten his wife black and blue, he disappeared sometimes for the whole night, not even coming back to the house for Sunday. Finally he would return, dirty, and with bloodshot eyes, to his home. Matrona would receive him in silence, wearing a severe expression, but full of secret pity. She knew that under these circumstances he would like nothing better than a drop of spirits, and already had a bottle of vodka prepared for him. "Come, pour me out a glass!" he cried in a hoarse voice, and after swallowing two, he would sit down to work. The whole of that day he would be troubled with pricks of conscience, which often became so severe and painful that he could not bear himself. He would throw down his work, and uttering wild words of self-reproach would pace up and down the room, or would throw himself on the bed. Motrja would give him time to get over this attack of remorse, and then they would make it up again. At first these reconciliations were full of much that was tender and sweet, but after a time this delight disappeared entirely, and they simply made it up, because it was impossible to remain a whole week--that is to say, till the following Saturday--without speaking to each other. "Are you going to destroy yourself, then, altogether with that vodka?" sighed Motrja. "It's possible," replied Grischka, spitting on one side, with the look of a man to whom it was quite immaterial whether he destroyed himself or not "And you will end by running away from me?..." he continued generally, exaggerating the picture of the future, and looking searchingly into her eyes.