Ahineev turned cold and faint. He went home like a man stung by
a whole swarm of bees, like a man scalded with boiling water. As
he walked home, it seemed to him that the whole town was
looking at him as though he were smeared with pitch. At home
fresh trouble awaited him.
"Why aren't you gobbling up your food as usual?" his wife asked
him at dinner. "What are you so pensive about? Brooding over
your amours? Pining for your Marfa? I know all about it,
Mohammedan! Kind friends have opened my eyes! O-o-o! . . . you
savage !"
And she slapped him in the
face. He got up from the table,
not feeling the earth under his
feet, and without his hat or
coat, made his way to Vankin.
He found him at home.
"You scoundrel!" he addressed
him. "Why have you covered
me with mud before all the
town? Why did you set this
slander going about me?"
"What slander? What are you talking about?"
"Who was it gossiped of my kissing Marfa? Wasn't it you? Tell me
that. Wasn't it you, you brigand?"
Vankin blinked and twitched in every fibre of his battered
countenance, raised his eyes to the