Evidently conscious of inspiring fear, and pleased at doing so, Kiryak
seized Marya by the arm, dragged her towards the door, and bellowed like
an animal in order to seem still more terrible; but at that moment he
suddenly caught sight of the visitors and stopped.

"Oh, they have come,..." he said, letting his wife go; "my own brother
and his family...."

Staggering and opening wide his red, drunken eyes, he said his prayer
before the image and went on:

"My brother and his family have come to the parental home... from
Moscow, I suppose. The great capital Moscow, to be sure, the mother of
cities.... Excuse me."

He sank down on the bench near the samovar and began drinking tea,
sipping it loudly from the saucer in the midst of general silence.... He
drank off a dozen cups, then reclined on the bench and began snoring.

They began going to bed. Nikolay, as an invalid, was put on the stove
with his old father; Sasha lay down on the floor, while Olga went with
the other women into the barn.

"Aye, aye, dearie," she said, lying down on the hay beside Marya; "you
won't mend your trouble with tears. Bear it in patience, that is all. It
is written in the Scriptures: 'If anyone smite thee on the right cheek,
offer him the left one also.'... Aye, aye, dearie."

Then in a low singsong murmur she told them about Moscow, about her own
life, how she had been a servant in furnished lodgings.

"And in Moscow the houses are big, built of brick," she said; "and there
are ever so many churches, forty times forty, dearie; and they are all
gentry in the houses, so handsome and so proper!"

Marya told her that she had not only never been in Moscow, but had not
even been in their own district town; she could not read or write, and
knew no prayers, not even "Our Father." Both she and Fyokla, the
other sister-in-law, who was sitting a little way off listening, were
extremely ignorant and could understand nothing. They both disliked
their husbands; Marya was afraid of Kiryak, and whenever he stayed with
her she was shaking with fear, and always got a headache from the fumes
of vodka and tobacco with which he reeked. And in answer to the question
whether she did not miss her husband, Fyokla answered with vexation:

"Miss him!"

They talked a little and sank into silence.

It was cool, and a cock crowed at the top of his voice near the barn,
preventing them from sleeping. When the bluish morning light was already
peeping through