Vassilissa was confused.
'Where have you been? I tell you,' he repeated.
Vassilissa looked round …
'I am speaking to you … where have you been?' And Pyetushkov raised his arm …
'Don't beat me, Ivan Afanasiitch, don't beat me,' Vassilissa whispered in terror.
Pyetushkov turned away.
'Beat you … No! I'm not going to beat you. Beat you? I beg your pardon, my darling. God bless you! While I supposed you loved me, while I … I … '
Ivan Afanasiitch broke off. He gasped for breath.
'Listen, Vassilissa,' he said at last. 'You know I'm a kind-hearted man, you know it, don't you, Vassilissa, don't you?'
'Yes, I do,' she said faltering.
'I do nobody any harm, nobody, nobody in the world. And I deceive nobody. Why are you deceiving me?'
'But I'm not deceiving you, Ivan Afanasiitch.'
'You aren't deceiving me? Oh, very well! Oh, very well! Then tell me where you've been.'
'I went to see Matrona.'
'That's a lie!'
'Really, I've been at Matrona's. You ask her, if you don't believe me.'
'And Bub—what's his name … have you seen that devil?'
'Yes, I did see him.'
'You did see him! you did see him! Oh! you did see him!'
Pyetushkov turned pale.
'So you were making an appointment with him in the morning at the window—eh? eh?'
'He asked me to come.'
'And so you went…. Thanks very much, my girl, thanks very much!'
Pyetushkov made Vassilissa a low bow.
'But, Ivan Afanasiitch, you're maybe fancying …'
'You'd better not talk to me! And a pretty fool I am! There's nothing to make an outcry for! You may make friends with any one you like. I've nothing to do with you. So there! I don't want to know you even.'
Vassilissa got up.
'That's for you to say, Ivan Afanasiitch.'
'Where are you going?'
'Why, you yourself …'
'I'm not sending you away,' Pyetushkov interrupted her.
'Oh no, Ivan Afanasiitch…. What's the use of my stopping here?'
Pyetushkov let her get as far as the door.
'So you're going, Vassilissa?'
'You keep on abusing me.'
'I abuse you! You've no fear of God, Vassilissa! When have I abused you?
Come, come, say when?'
'Why! Just this minute weren't you all but beating me?'
'Vassilissa, it's wicked of you. Really, it's downright wicked.'
'And then you threw it in my face, that you don't want to know me. 'I'm a gentleman,' say you.'
Ivan Afanasiitch began wringing his hands speechlessly. Vassilissa got back as far as the middle of the room.
'Well, God be with you, Ivan Afanasiitch. I'll keep myself to myself, and you keep yourself to yourself.'
'Nonsense, Vassilissa, nonsense,' Pyetushkov cut her short. 'You think again; look at me. You see I'm not myself. You see I don't know what I'm saying…. You might have some feeling for me.'
'You keep on abusing me, Ivan Afanasiitch.'
'Ah, Vassilissa! Let bygones be bygones. Isn't that right? Come, you're not angry with me, are you?'
'You keep abusing me,' Vassilissa repeated.
'I won't, my love, I won't. Forgive an old man like me. I'll never do it in future. Come, you've forgiven me, eh?'
'God be with you, Ivan Afanasiitch.'
'Come, laugh then, laugh.'
Vassilissa turned away.
'You laughed, you laughed, my love!' cried Pyetushkov, and he capered about like a child.
VI
The next day Pyetushkov went to the baker's shop as usual. Everything went on as before. But there was a settled ache at his heart. He did not laugh now as often, and sometimes he fell to musing. Sunday came. Praskovia Ivanovna had an attack of lumbago; she did not get down from the shelf bed, except with much difficulty to go to mass. After mass Pyetushkov called Vassilissa into the back room. She had been complaining all the morning of feeling dull. To judge by the expression of Ivan Afanasiitch's countenance, he was revolving in his brain some extraordinary idea, unforeseen even by him.
'You sit down here, Vassilissa,' he said to her, 'and I'll sit here. I want to have a little talk with you.'
Vassilissa sat down.
'Tell me, Vassilissa, can you write?'
'Write?'
'Yes, write?'
'No, I can't.'
'What about reading?'
'I can't read either.'
'Then who read you my letter?'
'The deacon.'
Pyetushkov paused.
'But would you like to learn to read and write?'
'Why, what use would reading and writing be to us, Ivan Afanasiitch?'
'What use? You could read books.'
'But what good is there in books?'
'All sorts of good … I tell you what, if you like, I'll bring you a book.'
'But I can't read, you see, Ivan Afanasiitch.'
'I'll read to you.'
'But, I say, won't it be dull?'
'Nonsense! dull! On the contrary, it's the best thing to get rid of dulness.'
'Maybe you'll read stories, then.'
'You shall see to-morrow.'
In the evening Pyetushkov returned home, and began rummaging in his boxes. He found several odd numbers of the Library of Good Reading, five grey Moscow novels, Nazarov's arithmetic, a child's geography with a globe on the title-page, the second part of Keydanov's history, two dream-books, an almanack for the year 1819, two numbers of Galatea, Kozlov's
