“I haven’t any zhamochki for you,” answered Varvara, growing bolder as the landlady became more good-tempered. “Now here’s some tarts. Gorge yourself!”
Ershova suddenly perceived the door into the dining-room, and cried out furiously:
“Out of my way, viper!”
She pushed Varvara aside and threw herself towards the door. There was no time to restrain her. Lowering her head and clenching her fists, she broke into the dining-room, throwing back the door with a crash. There she paused just inside the door and saw the soiled wallpaper. She uttered a long “whew” of astonishment. She stood with her hands on her hips and her legs crossed, shouting with rage:
“Then it’s true that you’re leaving!”
“Who put that into your head, Irinya Stepanovna?” said Varvara, trembling. “We’ve no such idea. Someone’s been fooling you.”
“We’re not going anywhere,” declared Peredonov. “We’re quite contented here.”
The landlady did not listen to them, she walked up to the panic-stricken Varvara, and shook her fist in her face. Peredonov got behind Varvara. He would have run away, but he wanted to see if Varvara and the landlady would come to blows.
“I will step on one of your legs,” exclaimed the landlady, furiously, “and tear you in half with the other.”
“Be quiet, Irinya Stepanovna,” said Varvara, persuasively. “We have visitors.”
“You can bring your visitors along too,” said the landlady. “I’ll do the same to them.”
She reeled and made a dash into the parlour, and suddenly changing her demeanour and tactics she said quietly to Prepolovenskaya, bowing so low before her that she almost fell on the floor:
“My dear lady, Sofya Efimovna, forgive a drunken old woman; I have something I’d like to say to you. You come to visit these people and yet you don’t know that they’re gossiping about your sister. And who to, d’you suppose? Me! A bootmaker’s drunken wife! And why? So I’d tell everyone—that’s why!”
Varvara grew purple in the face and said:
“I said nothing of the sort.”
“You didn’t? Do you mean to deny it, you mean cat?” shouted Ershova, coming up to Varvara, with clenched fists.
“Be quiet, will you?” muttered Varvara, in confusion.
“No,” said the landlady, spitefully, “I won’t be quiet,” and she turned again to Prepolovenskaya. “Do you know what she says, the little beast? She tried to make out that your sister is carrying on with your husband!”
Sofya’s sly eyes gleamed angrily at Varvara; she rose and said with a feigned laugh:
“Thank you humbly, I didn’t expect that.”
“Liar!” screamed Varvara, turning on Ershova.
Ershova gave an angry exclamation, stamped her foot, shook her hand at Varvara, and turned again to Prepolovenskaya.
“Yes, and do you know what he says about you, ma’am? He makes out that you carried on before you met your husband. That’s the sort of dirty people they are! Spit in their mugs, my good lady! It’s no use having anything to do with such low creatures!”
Prepolovenskaya flushed, and went silently into the passage. Peredonov ran after her, trying to explain:
“She’s lying, don’t believe her. I only said once before her that you were a fool and that was in a spiteful mood. But more than that, honest to God, I never said anything. She invented it.”
Prepolovenskaya reassured him:
“Don’t think about it, Ardalyon Borisitch, I can see myself that she’s drunk and babbling. Only, why do you permit this in your house?”
“Well, what’s to be done with her?” asked Peredonov.
Prepolovenskaya, confused and angry, was putting on her jacket. Peredonov did not offer to help her. He kept on mumbling excuses, but she paid no attention to him. He returned to the parlour. Ershova began to reproach him loudly, while Varvara ran out on the verandah to try and mollify Prepolovenskaya:
“You know yourself what a fool he is, he sometimes says anything that comes into his head.”
“All right, all right! Don’t mention it,” replied Prepolovenskaya. “A drunken woman might babble anything.”
Tall, dense nettles grew in the yard near the verandah. Prepolovenskaya smiled slightly and the last shadow of displeasure vanished from her plump white face. She became affable again towards Varvara. She would be revenged without an open quarrel. Together they went into the garden to wait until the landlady’s eruption was over.
Prepolovenskaya kept looking at the nettles which grew in abundance along the garden fence. She said at last:
“You have enough nettles here. Don’t you find any use for them?”
Varvara laughed and answered:
“What an idea! What could I do with them?”
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to take some with me, as I haven’t any.”
“What will you do with them?” asked Varvara, in astonishment.
“Oh, I’ll find a use for them,” said Prepolovenskaya, smiling.
“But, my dear, do tell me for what?” entreated Varvara, inquisitively.
Prepolovenskaya, bending towards Varvara, whispered in her ear:
“By rubbing your body with nettles, you keep fat. That’s why my Genichka is so plump.”
It was well known that Peredonov preferred fat women, and that he detested thin ones. Varvara was distressed because she was thin and was growing still thinner. How could she get a little plumper?—was one of her chief worries. She used to ask everyone: “Do you know any remedy for thinness?” And now Prepolovenskaya was convinced that Varvara would follow her suggestion and rub herself with nettles, and in this way be her own punisher.
III
Peredonov and Ershova went out into the open. He growled:
“Come this way.”
She shouted with all her might, though gaily. They were apparently getting ready to dance. Prepolovenskaya and Varvara passed through the kitchen into another room, where they sat down at the window to see what would happen.
Peredonov and Ershova embraced each other, and began to dance around the pear tree. Peredonov’s face remained dull as before and did not express anything. Mechanically, as upon an automaton, his golden-rimmed spectacles sprang up and down his nose, and his hair flopped up and down on his head. Ershova screamed, shouted, waved her arms, and at times reeled.
She shouted to Varvara, whom she espied
