"He'll come to no good! This is what a free and easy life leads to.... And you also, you will become like him." Jakoff did not like Sereja, and he replied there-fore-- "I shall never become like him." "No?" said Vassili, frowning. "I know what I am talking about ... How long have you been here? Already two months! You must soon be thinking of going back. And how much money have you saved?" He swallowed with a look of discontent the vodka which his son had poured out for him, and taking his beard in his hand he tugged at it so hard that his head shook. "I have not been able to save money in such a short time!" Jakoff argued with reason. "If that's the case, you had better not stay here; go back to the village!" Jakoff smiled. "Why these grimaces?" cried Vassili in a threatening voice, vexed with the calmness shown by his son. "Your father is talking to you, and you laugh. You are in too much of a hurry to think yourself free! You will have to get back into harness." Jakoff poured himself out some vodka, and drank it These coarse remarks of his father offended him; but he kept his temper, hiding his thought and not wishing to drive his father to fury. He began to feel frightened before this harsh, severe presence. And Vassili, noticing that his son had drunk alone without filling his father's glass, grew angrier still, though he retained an appearance of calmness. "Your father tells you to go home, and you laugh in his face! All right!... I'll speak to you in a different tone.... Ask for your money on Saturday and ... be off ... back to the village! Do you hear?" "I shall not go," said Jakoff firmly. "What?" howled Vassili; and leaning his two hands on the barrel, he got up. "Am I talking to you, or not? Dog that you are I howling against your father!... You have forgotten that I can do what I like with you; you have forgotten that? Eh?" His lips trembled, his face was convulsed; two great veins swelled out on his temples. "I have forgotten nothing," said Jakoff in a low voice, without looking at his father. "And you, have you forgotten nothing?" "It's not your place to preach morality to me; I will break you in pieces!..." Jakoff dodged his father's threatening hand, and feeling a savage hatred rising within him, he said with clinched teeth-- "Don't touch me! We are not in the village...." "Silence! I am your father, wherever you are...." "Here you can't have me beaten with birch-rods. Here it is different!" Jakoff spoke sneeringly, his face close to his father's. And he rose slowly. They stood there opposite each other. Vassili with bloodshot eyes, his head stretched forward, his hands clinched, breathed heavily into his son's face his vodka-laden breath; and Jakoff crouched back, was watching his father's movements, ready to parry his blows, apparently calm, but inwardly raging and sweating. Between them was the barrel which served as table.