at home.

MITYA. Good, I shall come without fail.

PELAGEYA EGOROVNA. He's going off again, you see; he's going off there to
that friend of his--what's his name?

MITYA. To Afrikan Savvich?

PELAGEYA EGOROVNA. Yes, yes! He's quite gone on him! Lord forgive him!

MITYA. Take a seat, Pelageya Egorovna. [_Fetches a chair_.

PELAGEYA EGOROVNA. Oh, I have no time. Well, yes, I'll sit down a bit.
[_Sits down_] Now just think, what a misfortune! Really, they've become
such friends that it beats everything! Yes, that's what it's come to! And
why? What's the use of it all? Tell me that, pray. Isn't Afrikan Savvich a
coarse, drunken fellow? Isn't he?

MITYA. Perhaps Gordey Karpych has some business with Afrikan Savvich.

PELAGEYA EGOROVNA. What sort of business! He has no business at all. You
see Afrikan Savvich is always drinking with that Englishman. He has an
Englishman as director of his factory, and they drink together! But he's
no fit company for my husband. But can you reason with him? Just think how
proud he is! He says to me: "There isn't a soul here to speak to; all," he
says, "are rabble, all, you see, are just so many peasants, and they live
like peasants. But that man, you see, is from Moscow--lives mostly in
Moscow--and he's rich." And whatever has happened to him? Well, you see, it
was all of a sudden, my dear boy, all of a sudden! He used to have so much
sense. Well, we lived, of course not luxuriously, but all the same pretty
fairly decently; and then last year he went for a trip, and he caught it
from some one. He caught it, he caught it, they have told me so--caught all
these tricks. Now he doesn't care for any of our Russian ways. He keeps
harping on this: "I want to be up to date, I want to be in the fashion.
Yes, yes! Put on a cap," he says! What an idea to get! Am I going to try to
charm any one in my old age and make myself look lovely? Bah! You just try
to do anything with him. He never drank before--really he didn't--but now
he drinks with this Afrikan. It must be that drink has turned his brain
[_points to her head_] and muddled him.... [_Silence_] I think now that the
devil has got hold of him! Why can't he have some sense! If he were a young
fellow! For a young fellow to dress up and all that is all right; but you
see he's nearly sixty, my dear, nearly sixty! Really! "Your fashionable
up-to-date things," says I, "change every day; our Russian things have
lived from time immemorial! The old fol