that her head positively flopped upon the table.  Every one was still.  Gerasim took up his spoon again and went on with his cabbage-soup.  “Look at him, the dumb devil, the wood-demon!” they all muttered in undertones, while the wardrobe-maid got up and went out into the maid’s room.  Another time, noticing that Kapiton—­the same Kapiton who was the subject of the conversation reported above—­was gossiping somewhat too attentively with Tatiana, Gerasim beckoned him to him, led him into the cartshed, and taking up a shaft that was standing in a corner by one end, lightly, but most significantly, menaced him with it.  Since then no one addressed a word to Tatiana.  And all this cost him nothing.  It is true the wardrobe-maid, as soon as she reached the maids’ room, promptly fell into a fainting fit, and behaved altogether so skilfully that Gerasim’s rough action reached his mistress’s knowledge the same day.  But the capricious old lady only laughed, and several times, to the great offence of the wardrobe-maid, forced her to repeat “how he bent your head down with his heavy hand,” and next day she sent Gerasim a rouble.  She looked on him with favor as a strong and faithful watchman.  Gerasim stood in considerable awe of her, but, all the same, he had hopes of her favor, and was preparing to go to her with a petition for leave to marry Tatiana.  He was only waiting for a new coat, promised him by the steward, to present a proper appearance before his mistress, when this same mistress suddenly took it into her head to marry Tatiana to Kapiton.

The reader will now readily understand the perturbation of mind that overtook the steward Gavrila after his conversation with his mistress.  “My lady,” he thought, as he sat at the window, “favors Gerasim, to be sure”—­(Gavrila was well aware of this, and that was why he himself looked on him with an indulgent eye)—­“still he is a speechless creature.  I could not, indeed, put it before the mistress that Gerasim’s courting Tatiana.  But, after all, it’s true enough; he’s a queer sort of husband.  But on the other hand, that devil, God forgive me, has only got to find out they’re marrying Tatiana to Kapiton, he’ll smash up everything in the house, ’pon my soul!  There’s no reasoning with him; why, he’s such a devil, God forgive my sins, there’s no getting over him nohow . . . ’pon my soul!”

Kapiton’s entrance broke the thread of Gavrila’s reflections.  The dissipated shoemaker came in, his hands behind him, and lounging carelessly against a projecting angle of the wall, near the door, crossed his right foot in front of his left, and tossed his head, as much as to say, “What do you want?”

Gavrila looked at Kapiton, and drummed with his fingers on the window-frame.  Kapiton merely screwed up his leaden eyes a little, but he did not look down; he even grinned slightly, and passed his hand over his whitish locks which were sticking up in all directions.  “Well, here I am.  What is it?”