“It’s our last day, Agrafena Ivanovna!”

“And good riddance! I want you to get the hell out of here; at least there’ll be more room for me. Yes, clear out: nowhere to move with your legs in the way all the time!” He reached to touch her shoulder and got another earful in return. He heaved another sigh, but stayed put anyway. He knew that Agrafena didn’t want him to move, and he was not at all put out.

“I wonder who’s going to be sitting in my seat,” he said with a sigh.

“The Devil,” she snapped.

“I hope to God it won’t be Proshka – and who’s going to play the card game with you?”

“So what if it is Proshka – what’s so wrong with that?” she retorted venomously.

Yevsei got up.

“Not with Proshka! God no, don’t play with him!” Yevsei was clearly upset and almost menacing.

“And who’s going to stop me? You, with your ugly mug?”

“My dear Agrafena Ivanovna,” he began cajolingly, putting his arms around her waist – that is, if there had been the slightest sign of a waist.

His attempt was met with an elbow in the chest.

“My dear Agrafena Ivanovna,” he repeated, “do you think he’s going to love you like I do? He’s a fly-by-night; he’s after any woman who happens to pass by. Not me, oh no, I’ll stick to you like glue. If it wasn’t for the master’s orders – well… you’d see!” As he spoke he grunted and waved his arm. As for Agrafena, her distress was too much for her, and she burst into tears.

“And you’re really going to leave me, damn you?” she said in tears. “How can you come up with such nonsense, you halfwit?! Me, team up with Proshka? You know as well as I do that you can never get any sense out of him, and he can’t keep his hands to himself – that’s all he knows.”

“You mean he’s already been after you? What a bastard! You only have to say the word, and I’d soon show him…”

“Just let him try, he’d soon get what’s coming to him! It’s not as if there aren’t other women in the house – I’m not the only one. Me team up with him! The very idea! I can’t even stand being near him, he has manners like a pig. Before you know it, he’s managed to hit someone, or snatch something from the master’s table right under your nose.”

“Look, you never know what may happen when the Devil’s at work, so just in case, why not get Grishka to sit here? He’s a harmless lad, hard-working and respectful.”

Agrafena jumped on him: “Another one of your great ideas! Dumping any Tom, Dick or Harry on me; what do you take me for? Get out of here! It must have been the Devil himself who put me up to teaming up with a hobgoblin like you for my sins – and for that I’ll never forgive myself… what an idea!”

“May God reward you for your virtue! That’ll be a weight off my mind!” Yevsei exclaimed.

“So, now you’re relieved,” she screamed again, like an animal in pain. “You must be really happy – I hope you enjoy it!” Her lips were white with anger. They both fell silent.

“Agrafena Ivanovna,” Yevsei began timidly, after a pause.

“Now what?”

“Well, I forgot; I haven’t had a bite to eat the whole morning.”

“Oh, so that’s it!”

“Well, I was too upset.”

From behind a loaf of sugar on the lowest shelf, she produced a glass of vodka and two enormous hunks of bread with some ham which she had carefully prepared for him well beforehand. She shoved it all at him in a manner you wouldn’t even shove it to a dog, and a piece fell on the floor.

“There, now choke on it. I hope to God you… quietly! Everyone in the house can hear the noise you’re making with your mouth.”

She turned her back on him as if she hated him, and he slowly began to eat, watching Agrafena warily and covering his mouth with the other hand.

Meanwhile a coach had appeared at the gate with three horses harnessed to it. A yoke had been thrown over the neck of the shaft horse. The little bell fastened to the saddle rang with a muffled and constricted sound like a drunk who had been bound and thrown into the guardhouse. The coachman tethered the horses under the awning of the barn, took off his cap, produced from it a dirty towel and mopped his brow. Anna Pavlovna saw him through the window and her face went pale. She went weak at the knees and her hands dropped, although it was a sight she had been expecting all along. She recovered her composure and called Agrafena.

“Go and see if Sashenka is sleeping, but on tiptoe and without making a sound,” she said. “My darling may have a long sleep, and it’s the last day, so I’ll hardly have a chance to look at him. No, wait! If I let you go, you’ll just blunder in like a cow! I’d better go myself.”

She went.

“Yes, you go, oh no, you’re no cow!” Agrafena grumbled to herself on her way back to her room. “Some cow! You’d be lucky to have more cows like me!”

On her way, Anna Pavlovna saw Alexander Fyodorych coming towards her. He was a fair-haired young man, in the flower of his youth, health and strength. He bade his mother a cheerful “Good morning”, but, suddenly catching sight of the trunks and packages, he was taken aback and moved silently to the window and started drawing on it with his finger. A minute later, he was back talking to his mother, quite untroubled, and even happily inspecting the preparations for the journey.

“Dear boy, you seem to have overslept – your face is even a little swollen; come, let me dab some rose water on your eyes and cheeks.”

“No, Mummy, please don’t.”

“What do you want for breakfast? Tea first or coffee? I’ve ordered chopped meat with sour cream for you.”

“Doesn’t matter, Mummy.”

Anna Pavlovna continued packing his linen, but then stopped and gave her son a sorrowful look.

“Sasha!” she said after a pause.

“What is it, Mummy?”

She hesitated before speaking, as if she were apprehensive.

“Where are you going, my dear, and why?” she asked timidly.

“Where to? What do you mean, Mummy? To St Petersburg, and then… and then, well, to…”

“Listen, Sasha,” she said nervously, putting her hand on his shoulder, clearly intending to make one last attempt, “there’s still time; think it over, don’t go!”

“Don’t go! How do you mean, ‘don’t go’? I mean, you’ve just packed my linen and all,” he said, at a loss for words.

“The linen is packed? Well, watch this: look, now it’s unpacked.” In a trice she had emptied the trunk.

“What are you doing, Mummy? I was all packed and ready to go – and now this. What will people say?”

He was downcast.

“It’s not for my sake that I want to stop you going, but rather for your own sake. Why go there? To find happiness? Is your life here so bad? Doesn’t your mother spend her days finding ways of indulging your slightest whim? Of course, at your age, a mother’s attentions alone are not enough to make you happy – and I don’t expect them to. Just look around you: you’re the centre of attention. And what about Sonyushka, Maria Vasilyevna’s daughter? There – you’re blushing! For three nights she hasn’t slept, pray God her health doesn’t suffer! Look how she loves you, my darling.”

“Come on, Mummy, what are you talking about, she’s…”

“Don’t deny it, you think I don’t… see.