without provocation in his voice:

"How could I help speaking?"

"Oh, you!" sighed Sasha and resumed dressing herself

"And what about me?"

"Merely so. You seem as though you were born of two fathers. Do you know
what I have observed among people?"

"Well?"

"If a man cannot answer for himself, it means that he is afraid of
himself, that his price is a grosh!"

"Do you refer to me?" asked Foma, after a pause.

"To you, too."

She threw a pink morning gown over her shoulders and, standing in the
centre of the room, stretched out her hand toward Foma, who lay at her
feet, and said to him in a low, dull voice:

"You have no right to speak about my soul. You have nothing to do with
it! And therefore hold your tongue! I may speak! If I please, I could
tell something to all of you. Eh, how I could tell it! Only,--who will
dare to listen to me, if I should speak at the top of my voice? And I
have some words about you,--they're like hammers! And I could knock you
all on your heads so that you would lose your wits. And although you are
all rascals--you cannot be cured by words. You should be burned in the
fire--just as frying-pans are burned out on the first Monday of Lent."

Raising her hands she abruptly loosened her hair, and when it fell over
her shoulders in heavy, black locks--the woman shook her head haughtily
and said, with contempt:

"Never mind that I am leading a loose life! It often happens, that the
man who lives in filth is purer than he who goes about in silks. If you
only knew what I think of you, you dogs, what wrath I bear against you!
And because of this wrath--I am silent! For I fear that if I should sing
it to you--my soul would become empty. I would have nothing to live on."
Foma looked at her, and now he was pleased with her. In her words there
was something akin to his frame of mind. Laughing, he said to her, with
satisfaction on his face and in his voice:

"And I also feel that something is growing within my soul. Eh, I too
shall have my say, when the time comes."

"Against whom?" asked Sasha, carelessly.

"I--against everybody!" exclaimed Foma, jumping to his feet. "Against
falsehood. I shall ask--"

"Ask whether the samovar is ready," Sasha ordered indifferently.

Foma glanced at her and cried, enraged:

"Go to the devil! Ask yourself."

"Well, all right, I shall. What are you snarling about?"

And she stepped out of the hut.

In piercing gusts the wind blew across the river