assion for catching at words, pouncing
on contradictions, quibbling over phrases. You would begin talking
to her, and she would stare at you and suddenly interrupt: "Excuse
me, excuse me, Petrov, the other day you said the very opposite!"

Or she would smile ironically and say: "I notice, though, you begin
to advocate the principles of the secret police. I congratulate
you."

If you jested or made a pun, you would hear her voice at once:
"That's stale," "That's pointless." If an officer ventured on a
joke, she would make a contemptuous grimace and say, "An army joke!"

And she rolled the _r_ so impressively that Mushka invariably
answered from under a chair, "Rrr . . . nga-nga-nga . . . !"

On this occasion at tea the argument began with Nikitin's mentioning
the school examinations.

"Excuse me, Sergey Vassilitch," Varya interrupted him. "You say
it's difficult for the boys. And whose fault is that, let me ask
you? For instance, you set the boys in the eighth class an essay
on 'Pushkin as a Psychologist.' To begin with, you shouldn't set
such a difficult subject; and, secondly, Pushkin was not a psychologist.
Shtchedrin now, or Dostoevsky let us say, is a different matter,
but Pushkin is a great poet and nothing more."

"Shtchedrin is one thing, and Pushkin is another," Nikitin answered
sulkily.

"I know you don't think much of Shtchedrin at the high school, but
that's not the point. Tell me, in what sense is Pushkin a psychologist?"

"Why, do you mean to say he was not a psychologist? If you like,
I'll give you examples."

And Nikitin recited several passages from "Onyegin" and then from
"Boris Godunov."

"I see no psychology in that." Varya sighed. "The psychologist is
the man who describes the recesses of the human soul, and that's
fine poetry and nothing more."

"I know the sort of psychology you want," said Nikitin, offended.
"You want some one to saw my finger with a blunt saw while I howl
at the top of my voice--that's what you mean by psychology."

"That's poor! But still you haven't shown me in what sense Pushkin
is a psychologist?"

When Nikitin had to argue against anything that seemed to him narrow,
conventional, or something of that kind, he usually leaped up from
his seat, clutched at his head with both hands, and began with a
moan, running from one end of the room to another. And it was the
same now: he jumped up, clutched his head in his hands, and with a
moan walked round the table, th