“What! what did you say?”

“I say it’s Pelagea’s fireman come to see her.”

“Worse than ever!” shrieked Marya Mihalovna.  “That’s worse than a burglar!  I won’t put up with cynicism in my house!”

“Hoity-toity!  We are virtuous! . . .  Won’t put up with cynicism?  As though it were cynicism!  What’s the use of firing off those foreign words?  My dear girl, it’s a thing that has happened ever since the world began, sanctified by tradition.  What’s a fireman for if not to make love to the cook?”

“No, Basile! It seems you don’t know me!  I cannot face the idea of such a . . . such a . . . in my house.  You must go this minute into the kitchen and tell him to go away!  This very minute!  And to-morrow I’ll tell Pelagea that she must not dare to demean herself by such proceedings!  When I am dead you may allow immorality in your house, but you shan’t do it now! . . .  Please go!”

“Damn it,” grumbled Gagin, annoyed.  “Consider with your microscopic female brain, what am I to go for?”

“Basile, I shall faint! . . .”

Gagin cursed, put on his slippers, cursed again, and set off to the kitchen.  It was as dark as the inside of a barrel, and the assistant procurator had to feel his way.  He groped his way to the door of the nursery and waked the nurse.

“Vassilissa,” he said, “you took my dressing-gown to brush last night—­where is it?”

“I gave it to Pelagea to brush, sir.”

“What carelessness!  You take it away and don’t put it back—­now I’ve to go without a dressing-gown!”

On reaching the kitchen, he made his way to the corner in which on a box under a shelf of saucepans the cook slept.

“Pelagea,” he said, feeling her shoulder and giving it a shake, “Pelagea!  Why are you pretending?  You are not asleep!  Who was it got in at your window just now?”

“Mm . . . m . . . good morning!  Got in at the window?  Who could get in?”

“Oh come, it’s no use your trying to keep it up!  You’d better tell your scamp to clear out while he can!  Do you hear?  He’s no business to be here!”

“Are you out of your senses, sir, bless you?  Do you think I’d be such a fool?  Here one’s running about all day long, never a minute to sit down and then spoken to like this at night!  Four roubles a month . . . and to find my own tea and sugar and this is all the credit I get for it!  I used to live in a tradesman’s house, and never met with such insult there!”

“Come, come—­no need to go over your grievances!  This very minute your grenadier must turn out!  Do you understand?”

“You ought to be ashamed, sir,” said Pelagea, and he could hear the tears in her voice.  “Gentlefolks . . . educated, and yet not a notion that with our hard lot . . . in our life of toil”—­she burst into tears.  “It’s easy to insult us.  There’s no one to stand up for us.”

“Come, come . . .  I don’t mind!  Your mistress sent me.  You may let a devil in at the window for all I care!”