“Damn it all!” he mutters; “I shall have to dine at a restaurant, I suppose.”

“What’s wrong?” asks his wife anxiously.  “Isn’t the soup good?”

“One must have the taste of a pig to eat hogwash like that!  There’s too much salt in it; it smells of dirty rags . . . more like bugs than onions. . . .  It’s simply revolting, Anfissa Ivanovna,” he says, addressing the midwife.  “Every day I give no end of money for housekeeping. . . .  I deny myself everything, and this is what they provide for my dinner!  I suppose they want me to give up the office and go into the kitchen to do the cooking myself.”

“The soup is very good to-day,” the governess ventures timidly.

“Oh, you think so?” says Zhilin, looking at her angrily from under his eyelids.  “Every one to his taste, of course.  It must be confessed our tastes are very different, Varvara Vassilyevna.  You, for instance, are satisfied with the behaviour of this boy” (Zhilin with a tragic gesture points to his son Fedya); “you are delighted with him, while I . . .  I am disgusted.  Yes!”

Fedya, a boy of seven with a pale, sickly face, leaves off eating and drops his eyes.  His face grows paler still.

“Yes, you are delighted, and I am disgusted.  Which of us is right, I cannot say, but I venture to think as his father, I know my own son better than you do.  Look how he is sitting!  Is that the way decently brought up children sit?  Sit properly.”

Fedya tilts his chin up, cranes his neck, and fancies that he is holding himself better.  Tears come into his eyes.

“Eat your dinner!  Hold your spoon properly!  You wait.  I’ll show you, you horrid boy!  Don’t dare to whimper!  Look straight at me!”

Fedya tries to look straight at him, but his face is quivering and his eyes fill with tears.

“A-ah! . . . you cry?  You are naughty and then you cry?  Go and stand in the corner, you beast!”

“But . . . let him have his dinner first,” his wife intervenes.

“No dinner for him!  Such bla . . . such rascals don’t deserve dinner!”

Fedya, wincing and quivering all over, creeps down from his chair and goes into the corner.

“You won’t get off with that!” his parent persists.  “If nobody else cares to look after your bringing up, so be it; I must begin. . . .  I won’t let you be naughty and cry at dinner, my lad!  Idiot!  You must do your duty!  Do you understand?  Do your duty!  Your father works and you must work, too!  No one must eat the bread of idleness!  You must be a man!  A m-man!”

“For God’s sake, leave off,” says his wife in French.  “Don’t nag at us before outsiders, at least. . . .  The old woman is all ears; and now, thanks to her, all the town will hear of it.”

“I am not afraid of outsiders,” answers Zhilin in Russian.  “Anfissa Ivanovna sees that I am speaking the truth.  Why, do you think I ought to be pleased with the boy?  Do you know what he costs me?  Do you know, you nasty boy, what you cost me?  Or do you imagine that I coin money, that I get it for nothing?  Don’t howl!  Hold your tongue!  Do you hear what I say?  Do you want me to whip you, you young ruffian?”