Bugrov seized her by the elbow, shook her, and flung her like an indiarubber ball towards the window. . . .

“Wretched, vulgar woman! you have no shame!”

She flew towards the window, hardly touching the floor with her feet, and caught at the curtains with her hands.

“Hold your tongue,” shouted her husband, going up to her with flashing eyes and stamping his foot.

She did hold her tongue, she looked at the ceiling, and whimpered while her face wore the expression of a little girl in disgrace expecting to be punished.

“So that’s what you are like!  Eh?  Carrying on with a fop!  Good!  And your promise before the altar?  What are you?  A nice wife and mother.  Hold your tongue!”

And he struck her on her pretty supple shoulder.  “Hold your tongue, you wretched creature.  I’ll give you worse than that!  If that scoundrel dares to show himself here ever again, if I see you—­ listen!—­with that blackguard ever again, don’t ask for mercy!  I’ll kill you, if I go to Siberia for it!  And him too.  I shouldn’t think twice about it!  You can go, I don’t want to see you!”

Bugrov wiped his eyes and his brow with his sleeve and strode about the drawing-room, Liza sobbing more and more loudly, twitching her shoulders and her little turned up nose, became absorbed in examining the lace on the curtain.

“You are crazy,” her husband shouted.  “Your silly head is full of nonsense!  Nothing but whims!  I won’t allow it, Elizaveta, my girl!  You had better be careful with me!  I don’t like it!  If you want to behave like a pig, then . . . then out you go, there is no place in my house for you!  Out you pack if. . . .  You are a wife, so you must forget these dandies, put them out of your silly head!  It’s all foolishness!  Don’t let it happen again!  You try defending yourself!  Love your husband!  You have been given to your husband, so you must love him.  Yes, indeed!  Is one not enough?  Go away till . . . .  Torturers!”

Bugrov paused; then shouted: 

“Go away I tell you, go to the nursery!  Why are you blubbering, it is your own fault, and you blubber!  What a woman!  Last year you were after Petka Totchkov, now you are after this devil.  Lord forgive us! . . .  Tfoo, it’s time you understood what you 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. . . .”