he roubles would take care of themselves, and that he put religion
and morality before everything else in the world. And holding his
knife in his fist as though it were a sword, he would say:

"Every one ought to have his duties!"

And Anna listened to him, was frightened, and could not eat, and
she usually got up from the table hungry. After dinner her husband
lay down for a nap and snored loudly, while Anna went to see her
own people. Her father and the boys looked at her in a peculiar
way, as though just before she came in they had been blaming her
for having married for money a tedious, wearisome man she did not
love; her rustling skirts, her bracelets, and her general air of a
married lady, offended them and made them uncomfortable. In her
presence they felt a little embarrassed and did not know what to
talk to her about; but yet they still loved her as before, and were
not used to having dinner without her. She sat down with them to
cabbage soup, porridge, and fried potatoes, smelling of mutton
dripping. Pyotr Leontyitch filled his glass from the decanter with
a trembling hand and drank it off hurriedly, greedily, with repulsion,
then poured out a second glass and then a third. Petya and Andrusha,
thin, pale boys with big eyes, would take the decanter and say
desperately:

"You mustn't, father. . . . Enough, father. . . ."

And Anna, too, was troubled and entreated him to drink no more; and
he would suddenly fly into a rage and beat the table with his fists:

"I won't allow any one to dictate to me!" he would shout. "Wretched
boys! wretched girl! I'll turn you all out!"

But there was a note of weakness, of good-nature in his voice, and
no one was afraid of him. After dinner he usually dressed in his
best. Pale, with a cut on his chin from shaving, craning his thin
neck, he would stand for half an hour before the glass, prinking,
combing his hair, twisting his black moustache, sprinkling himself
with scent, tying his cravat in a bow; then he would put on his
gloves and his top-hat, and go off to give his private lessons. Or
if it was a holiday he would stay at home and paint, or play the
harmonium, which wheezed and growled; he would try to wrest from
it pure harmonious sounds and would sing to it; or would storm at
the boys:

"Wretches! Good-for-nothing boys! You have spoiled the instrument!"

In the evening Anna's husband played cards with his colleagues, who
lived under the same roof in the government