o home and make soup. I am better there than in the shop. Oh yes! it
is always that. Akulina can make good things to eat, and good tea and good
punch to drink, and Akulina is the Archangel Michael in the kitchen. But
if Akulina says to you, 'Save a penny here, do not lend more than you have
there,' Akulina is a fool and must be told to choose her language, lest it
be too indelicate for the dandified ears of the high-born gentleman! I
should not wonder if, by choosing her language carefully enough, Akulina
ended by making the high-born gentleman understand something after all.
His perception cannot possibly be so dull as yours, Christian
Gregorovitch, my little husband."

Akulina paused for breath after her tremendous invective, which, indeed,
was only intended by her for the preface of the real discourse, so fertile
was her imagination and so thoroughly roused was her eloquence by the
sense of injury received. While she was speaking, Fischelowitz, whose
terror of his larger half was only relative, had calmly risen and had
wound up the "Wiener Gigerl" to the extreme of the doll's powers, placing
it on the counter before him and sitting down before it in anticipation of
the amusement he expected to derive from its performance. In the short
silence which ensued while Akulina was resting her lungs for a second and
more deadly effort, the wretched little musical box made itself heard,
clicking and scratching and grinding out a miserable little polka. At the
sound, the sunny smile returned to the tobacconist's face. He knew that no
earthly eloquence, no scathing wit, no brutal reply could possibly
exasperate his wife as this must. He resented everything she had said, and
in his vulgar way he was ashamed that she should have said it before the
Count, and now he was glad that by the mere turning of a key he could
answer her storm of words in a way to drive her to fury, while at the same
time showing his own indifference. As for the Count himself, he had moved
nearer to the door and was looking quietly out into the irregularly
lighted street, smoking as though he had not heard a word of what had been
said. As he stood, it was impossible for either of the others to see his
face, and he betrayed no agitation by movement or gesture.

Akulina turned pale to the lips, as her husband had anticipated. It is
probable that the most tragic event conceivable in her existence could not
have affected her more powerfully than the twang of the