ou are! A wife! A
mother! Last year there were unpleasantnesses, and now there will
be unpleasantnesses. . . . Tfoo!"

Bugrov heaved a loud sigh, and the air was filled with the smell
of sherry. He had come back from dining and was slightly drunk
. . . .

"Don't you know your duty? No! . . . you must be taught, you've not
been taught so far! Your mamma was a gad-about, and you . . . you
can blubber. Yes! blubber away. . . ."

Bugrov went up to his wife and drew the curtain out of her hands.

"Don't stand by the window, people will see you blubbering. . . .
Don't let it happen again. You'll go from embracing to worse trouble.
You'll come to grief. Do you suppose I like to be made a fool of?
And you will make a fool of me if you carry on with them, the low
brutes. . . . Come, that's enough. . . . Don't you. . . . Another
time. . . . Of course I . . Liza . . . stay. . . ."

Bugrov heaved a sigh and enveloped Liza in the fumes of sherry.

"You are young and silly, you don't understand anything. . . . I
am never at home. . . . And they take advantage of it. You must be
sensible, prudent. They will deceive you. And then I won't endure
it. . . . Then I may do anything. . . . Of course! Then you can
just lie down, and die. I . . . I am capable of doing anything if
you deceive me, my good girl. I might beat you to death. . . . And
. . . I shall turn you out of the house, and then you can go to
your rascals."

And Bugrov (_horribile dictu_) wiped the wet, tearful face of the
traitress Liza with his big soft hand. He treated his twenty-year-old
wife as though she were a child.

"Come, that's enough. . . . I forgive you. Only God forbid it should
happen again! I forgive you for the fifth time, but I shall not
forgive you for the sixth, as God is holy. God does not forgive
such as you for such things."

Bugrov bent down and put out his shining lips towards Liza's little
head. But the kiss did not follow. The doors of the hall, of the
dining-room, of the parlour, and of the drawing-room all slammed,
and Groholsky flew into the drawing-room like a whirlwind. He was
pale and trembling. He was flourishing his arms and crushing his
expensive hat in his hands. His coat fluttered upon him as though
it were on a peg. He was the incarnation of acute fever. When Bugrov
saw him he moved away from his wife and began looking out of the
other window. Groholsky flew up to him, and waving his arms and
breathing heavily and looking at n