nothing! Order yourself new
boots and uniforms!"

The student turned pale and got up.

"Listen, papa," he began, gasping for breath. "I... I beg you to end
this, for..."

"Hold your tongue!" the father shouted at him, and so loudly that the
spectacles fell off his nose; "hold your tongue!"

"I used... I used to be able to put up with such scenes, but... but now
I have got out of the way of it. Do you understand? I have got out of
the way of it!"

"Hold your tongue!" cried the father, and he stamped with his feet. "You
must listen to what I say! I shall say what I like, and you hold your
tongue. At your age I was earning my living, while you... Do you know
what you cost me, you scoundrel? I'll turn you out! Wastrel!"

"Yevgraf Ivanovitch," muttered Fedosya Semyonovna, moving her fingers
nervously; "you know he... you know Petya...!"

"Hold your tongue!" Shiryaev shouted out to her, and tears actually came
into his eyes from anger. "It is you who have spoilt them--you! It's
all your fault! He has no respect for us, does not say his prayers, and
earns nothing! I am only one against the ten of you! I'll turn you out
of the house!"

The daughter Varvara gazed fixedly at her mother with her mouth open,
moved her vacant-looking eyes to the window, turned pale, and, uttering
a loud shriek, fell back in her chair. The father, with a curse and a
wave of the hand, ran out into the yard.

This was how domestic scenes usually ended at the Shiryaevs'. But on
this occasion, unfortunately, Pyotr the student was carried away by
overmastering anger. He was just as hasty and ill-tempered as his father
and his grandfather the priest, who used to beat his parishioners about
the head with a stick. Pale and clenching his fists, he went up to his
mother and shouted in the very highest tenor note his voice could reach:

"These reproaches are loathsome! sickening to me! I want nothing from
you! Nothing! I would rather die of hunger than eat another mouthful at
your expense! Take your nasty money back! take it!"

The mother huddled against the wall and waved her hands, as though it
were not her son, but some phantom before her. "What have I done?" she
wailed. "What?"

Like his father, the boy waved his hands and ran into the yard.
Shiryaev's house stood alone on a ravine which ran like a furrow for
four miles along the steppe. Its sides were overgrown with oak saplings
and alders, and a stream ran at the bottom. On one side the hou