. "You
are a mother . . . do you understand? A mother! How can you teach
your children if you know nothing yourself? You have a good brain,
but what's the use of it if you have never mastered the very rudiments
of knowledge? There--never mind about knowledge . . . the children
will get that at school, but, you know, you are very shaky on the
moral side too! You sometimes use such language that it makes my
ears tingle!"

Somov shrugs his shoulders again, wraps himself in the folds of his
dressing-gown and continues his pacing. . . . He feels vexed and
injured, and at the same time sorry for Lidotchka, who does not
protest, but merely blinks. . . . Both feel oppressed and miserable
. . . . Absorbed in their woes, they do not notice how time is passing
and the dinner hour is approaching.

Sitting down to dinner, Somov, who is fond of good eating and of
eating in peace, drinks a large glass of vodka and begins talking
about something else. Lidotchka listens and assents, but suddenly
over the soup her eyes fill with tears and she begins whimpering.

"It's all mother's fault!" she says, wiping away her tears with her
dinner napkin. "Everyone advised her to send me to the high school,
and from the high school I should have been sure to go on to the
University!"

"University . . . high school," mutters Somov. "That's running to
extremes, my girl! What's the good of being a blue stocking! A blue
stocking is the very deuce! Neither man nor woman, but just something
midway: neither one thing nor another. . . I hate blue stockings!
I would never have married a learned woman. . . ."

"There's no making you out . . .", says Lidotchka. "You are angry
because I am not learned, and at the same time you hate learned
women; you are annoyed because I have no ideas in my letter, and
yet you yourself are opposed to my studying. . . ."

"You do catch me up at a word, my dear," yawns Somov, pouring out
a second glass of vodka in his boredom.

Under the influence of vodka and a good dinner, Somov grows more
good-humoured, lively, and soft. . . . He watches his pretty wife
making the salad with an anxious face and a rush of affection for
her, of indulgence and forgiveness comes over him.

"It was stupid of me to depress her, poor girl . . . ," he thought.
"Why did I say such a lot of dreadful things? She is silly, that's
true, uncivilised and narrow; but . . . there are two sides to the
question, and _audiatur et altera pars_. . . . P