woe!” proclaimed the father-in-law, striking the floor with his cane. Frightened little smiles appeared on the faces of the oldsters. “Don’t, daddy, we’ve been through it a thousand times,” Marthe said quietly, and shrugged a chilly shoulder. Her young man offered her a fringed shawl but she, forming the rudiment of a tender smile with one corner of her thin lips, waved away his sensitive hand. (“The first thing I look at in a man is his hands.”) He was dressed in the smart black uniform of a telegraph employee and perfumed with violet scent.
“Woe!” repeated the father-in-law forcefully and began to curse Cincinnatus in detail and with relish. Cincinnatus’s gaze was drawn to Pauline’s green polka-dotted dress: red-haired, cross-eyed, bespectacled, arousing not laughter but sadness with those polka dots and that plumpness, dully moving her fat legs in brown wool stockings and button shoes, she would approach those present and study each, gazing gravely and silently with her small dark eyes, which seemed to meet behind the bridge of her nose. The poor thing had a napkin tied around her neck—evidently they had forgotten to take it off after breakfast.
The father-in-law paused to regain breath, then struck another blow with his cane, whereupon Cincinnatus said, “Yes, I am listening.”
“Silence, insolent fellow,” shouted the former, “I am entitled to expect from you—if only today, when you stand at death’s door—a little respect. How you managed to getyourself on the block … I want an explanation from you—how you could … how you dared …”
Marthe asked her young man something in a low voice; he was carefully rummaging around, probing all around himself and under himself on the couch; “no, no, it’s all right,” he answered just as softly, “I must have dropped it on the way … Don’t worry, it’ll turn up … But tell me, are you sure you’re not cold?” Shaking her head negatively, Marthe lowered her soft palm onto his wrist; and, taking her hand away immediately, she straightened her dress across the knees and in a harsh whisper called her son, who was bothering his uncles, who in turn kept pushing him away—he was preventing them from listening. Diomedon, in a gray blouse with an elastic at the hips, twisting his whole body in a rhythmic distortion, nevertheless quite rapidly covered the distance between them and his mother. His left leg was healthy and rosy; the right one resembled a rifle in its complicated harness: barrel, straps, sling. His round hazel eyes and sparse eyebrows were his mother’s, but the lower half of his face, with its bulldog jowls—this, of course, was someone else’s. “Sit here,” whispered Marthe and, with a quick slap arrested the hand mirror which was trickling off the couch.
“You tell me,” the father-in-law was continuing, “how you dared, you, a happy family man—splendid furniture, wonderful children, a loving wife—how you dared not consider all this, you villain? It seems to me sometimes that I am no more than an old moron and understand nothing, because otherwise I must allow for such loathsomeness … Silence!” he roared, and again the oldsters started and smiled.
A black cat stretched, straining back one hind paw, rubbed itself against Cincinnatus’s leg, then was suddenly on the sideboard, and from there noiselessly leaped onto the shoulder of the lawyer who, having just tiptoed in, was sitting in a corner on a plush hassock—he had a bad cold and, over a handkerchief held ready for use, was inspecting the assembled company and the various household items that made the cell look like the site of an auction; the cat startled him, and he threw it off with a convulsive movement.
The father-in-law was thundering on, multiplying curses and already beginning to grow hoarse. Marthe placed her hand over her eyes; her young man, tensing his jaw muscles, was watching her. On a settee with a curved back sat
“Woe!” repeated the father-in-law forcefully and began to curse Cincinnatus in detail and with relish. Cincinnatus’s gaze was drawn to Pauline’s green polka-dotted dress: red-haired, cross-eyed, bespectacled, arousing not laughter but sadness with those polka dots and that plumpness, dully moving her fat legs in brown wool stockings and button shoes, she would approach those present and study each, gazing gravely and silently with her small dark eyes, which seemed to meet behind the bridge of her nose. The poor thing had a napkin tied around her neck—evidently they had forgotten to take it off after breakfast.
The father-in-law paused to regain breath, then struck another blow with his cane, whereupon Cincinnatus said, “Yes, I am listening.”
“Silence, insolent fellow,” shouted the former, “I am entitled to expect from you—if only today, when you stand at death’s door—a little respect. How you managed to getyourself on the block … I want an explanation from you—how you could … how you dared …”
Marthe asked her young man something in a low voice; he was carefully rummaging around, probing all around himself and under himself on the couch; “no, no, it’s all right,” he answered just as softly, “I must have dropped it on the way … Don’t worry, it’ll turn up … But tell me, are you sure you’re not cold?” Shaking her head negatively, Marthe lowered her soft palm onto his wrist; and, taking her hand away immediately, she straightened her dress across the knees and in a harsh whisper called her son, who was bothering his uncles, who in turn kept pushing him away—he was preventing them from listening. Diomedon, in a gray blouse with an elastic at the hips, twisting his whole body in a rhythmic distortion, nevertheless quite rapidly covered the distance between them and his mother. His left leg was healthy and rosy; the right one resembled a rifle in its complicated harness: barrel, straps, sling. His round hazel eyes and sparse eyebrows were his mother’s, but the lower half of his face, with its bulldog jowls—this, of course, was someone else’s. “Sit here,” whispered Marthe and, with a quick slap arrested the hand mirror which was trickling off the couch.
“You tell me,” the father-in-law was continuing, “how you dared, you, a happy family man—splendid furniture, wonderful children, a loving wife—how you dared not consider all this, you villain? It seems to me sometimes that I am no more than an old moron and understand nothing, because otherwise I must allow for such loathsomeness … Silence!” he roared, and again the oldsters started and smiled.
A black cat stretched, straining back one hind paw, rubbed itself against Cincinnatus’s leg, then was suddenly on the sideboard, and from there noiselessly leaped onto the shoulder of the lawyer who, having just tiptoed in, was sitting in a corner on a plush hassock—he had a bad cold and, over a handkerchief held ready for use, was inspecting the assembled company and the various household items that made the cell look like the site of an auction; the cat startled him, and he threw it off with a convulsive movement.
The father-in-law was thundering on, multiplying curses and already beginning to grow hoarse. Marthe placed her hand over her eyes; her young man, tensing his jaw muscles, was watching her. On a settee with a curved back sat
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