To take money by stealth or ask for it, she could not; she was afraid of her husband, she trembled before him.  She felt as though she had been afraid of him for years.  In her childhood the director of the high school had always seemed the most impressive and terrifying force in the world, sweeping down like a thunderstorm or a steam-engine ready to crush her; another similar force of which the whole family talked, and of which they were for some reason afraid, was His Excellency; then there were a dozen others, less formidable, and among them the teachers at the high school, with shaven upper lips, stern, implacable; and now finally, there was Modest Alexeitch, a man of principle, who even resembled the director in the face.  And in Anna’s imagination all these forces blended together into one, and, in the form of a terrible, huge white bear, menaced the weak and erring such as her father.  And she was afraid to say anything in opposition to her husband, and gave a forced smile, and tried to make a show of pleasure when she was coarsely caressed and defiled by embraces that excited her terror.  Only once Pyotr Leontyitch had the temerity to ask for a loan of fifty roubles in order to pay some very irksome debt, but what an agony it had been!

“Very good; I’ll give it to you,” said Modest Alexeitch after a moment’s thought; “but I warn you I won’t help you again till you give up drinking.  Such a failing is disgraceful in a man in the government service!  I must remind you of the well-known fact that many capable people have been ruined by that passion, though they might possibly, with temperance, have risen in time to a very high.”

And long-winded phrases followed:  “inasmuch as . . .”, “following upon which proposition . . .”, “in view of the aforesaid contention . . .”; and Pyotr Leontyitch was in agonies of humiliation and felt an intense craving for alcohol.

And when the boys came to visit Anna, generally in broken boots and threadbare trousers, they, too, had to listen to sermons.

“Every man ought to have his duties!” Modest Alexeitch would say to them.

And he did not give them money.  But he did give Anna bracelets, rings, and brooches, saying that these things would come in useful for a rainy day.  And he often unlocked her drawer and made an inspection to see whether they were all safe.

II

Meanwhile winter came on.  Long before Christmas there was an announcement in the local papers that the usual winter ball would take place on the twenty-ninth of December in the Hall of Nobility.  Every evening after cards Modest Alexeitch was excitedly whispering with his colleagues’ wives and glancing at Anna, and then paced up and down the room for a long while, thinking.  At last, late one evening, he stood still, facing Anna, and said: 

“You ought to get yourself a ball dress.  Do you understand?  Only please consult Marya Grigoryevna and Natalya Kuzminishna.”