was sitting beside her on a
box, mending Arhipka's trousers. Yevgraf Ivanovitch was pacing from one
window to another, scowling at the weather. From his walk, from the
way he cleared his throat, and even from the back of his head, it was
evident he felt himself to blame.

"I suppose you have changed your mind about going today?" he asked.

The student felt sorry for him, but immediately suppressing that
feeling, he said:

"Listen... I must speak to you seriously... yes, seriously. I have
always respected you, and... and have never brought myself to speak to
you in such a tone, but your behaviour... your last action..."

The father looked out of the window and did not speak. The student, as
though considering his words, rubbed his forehead and went on in great
excitement:

"Not a dinner or tea passes without your making an uproar. Your bread
sticks in our throat... nothing is more bitter, more humiliating, than
bread that sticks in one's throat.... Though you are my father, no one,
neither God nor nature, has given you the right to insult and humiliate
us so horribly, to vent your ill-humour on the weak. You have worn my
mother out and made a slave of her, my sister is hopelessly crushed,
while I..."

"It's not your business to teach me," said his father.

"Yes, it is my business! You can quarrel with me as much as you like,
but leave my mother in peace! I will not allow you to torment my
mother!" the student went on, with flashing eyes. "You are spoilt
because no one has yet dared to oppose you. They tremble and are
mute towards you, but now that is over! Coarse, ill-bred man! You are
coarse... do you understand? You are coarse, ill-humoured, unfeeling.
And the peasants can't endure you!"

The student had by now lost his thread, and was not so much speaking as
firing off detached words. Yevgraf Ivanovitch listened in silence, as
though stunned; but suddenly his neck turned crimson, the colour crept
up his face, and he made a movement.

"Hold your tongue!" he shouted.

"That's right!" the son persisted; "you don't like to hear the truth!
Excellent! Very good! begin shouting! Excellent!"

"Hold your tongue, I tell you!" roared Yevgraf Ivanovitch.

Fedosya Semyonovna appeared in the doorway, very pale, with an
astonished face; she tried to say something, but she could not, and
could only move her fingers.

"It's all your fault!" Shiryaev shouted at her. "You have brought him up
like this!"

"I don't want