.
'Haven't you seen my little glass of grated horse-radish? Paul, be so
good as not to make me angry for the future.'

'How make you angry, auntie? Give me your little hand to kiss. Your
horse-radish I saw on the little table in the boudoir.'

'Darya always leaves it about somewhere,' said Anna Vassilyevna, and she
walked away with a rustle of silk skirts.

Shubin was about to follow her, but he stopped on hearing Uvar
Ivanovitch's drawling voice behind him.

'I would... have given it you... young puppy,' the retired cornet
brought out in gasps.

Shubin went up to him. 'And what have I done, then, most venerable Uvar
Ivanovitch?'

'How! you are young, be respectful. Yes indeed.'

'Respectful to whom?'

'To whom? You know whom. Ay, grin away.'

Shubin crossed his arms on his breast.

'Ah, you type of the choice element in drama,' he exclaimed, 'you
primeval force of the black earth, cornerstone of the social fabric!'

Uvar Ivanovitch's fingers began to work. 'There, there, my boy, don't
provoke me.'

'Here,' pursued Shubin, 'is a gentleman, not young to judge by
appearances, but what blissful, child-like faith is still hidden in
him! Respect! And do you know, you primitive creature, what Nikolai
Artemyevitch was in a rage with me for? Why I spent the whole of this
morning with him at his German woman's; we were singing the three of
us--"Do not leave me." You should have heard us--that would have moved
you. We sang and sang, my dear sir--and well, I got bored; I could see
something was wrong, there was an alarming tenderness in the air. And
I began to tease them both. I was very successful. First she was angry
with me, then with him; and then he got angry with her, and told her
that he was never happy except at home, and he had a paradise there; and
she told him he had no morals; and I murmured "Ach!" to her in German.
He walked off and I stayed behind; he came here, to his paradise that's
to say, and he was soon sick of paradise, so he set to grumbling. Well
now, who do you consider was to blame?'

'You, of course,' replied Uvar Ivanovitch.

Shubin stared at him. 'May I venture to ask you, most reverend
knight-errant,' he began in an obsequious voice, 'these enigmatical
words you have deigned to utter as the result of some exercise of your
reflecting faculties, or under the influence of a momentary necessity to
start the vibration in the air known as sound?'

'Don't tempt me, I tell you,' groaned Uvar