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“Stay,” I cried, in a frenzy, as he was slowly and silently turning, with one hand behind his back, to go to his room.”Stay! Come back, come back, I tell you! ” and I must have bawled so unnaturally, that he turned round and even looked at me with some wonder. However, he persisted in saying nothing, and that infuriated me.

“How dare you come and look at me like that without being sent for? Answer! “

After looking at me calmly for half a minute, he began turning round again.

“Stay! ” I roared, running up to him, “don’t stir! There. Answer, now: what did you come in to look at? “

“If you have any order to give me it’s my duty to carry it out,” he answered, after another silent pause, with a slow, measured lisp, raising his eyebrows and calmly twisting his head from one side to another, all this with exasperating composure.

“That’s not what I am asking you about, you torturer! ” I shouted, turning crimson with anger.”I’ll tell you why you came here myself: you see, I don’t give you your wages, you are so proud you don’t want to bow down and ask for it, and so you come to punish me with your stupid stares, to worry me and you have no sus… pic… ion how stupid it is–stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid! …”

He would have turned round again without a word, but I seized him.

“Listen,” I shouted to him.”Here’s the money, do you see, here it is,” (I took it out of the table drawer); “here’s the seven roubles complete, but you are not going to have it,you… are… not… going… to… have it until you come respectfully with bowed head to beg my pardon. Do you hear? “

“That cannot be,” he answered, with the most unnatural self-confidence.

“It shall be so,” I said, “I give you my word of honour, it shall be! “

“And there’s nothing for me to beg your pardon for,” he went on, as though he had not noticed my exclamations at all.”Why, besides, you called me a ‘torturer,’ for which I can summon you at the police-station at any time for insulting behaviour.”

“Go, summon me,” I roared, “go at once, this very minute, this very second! You are a torturer all the same! a torturer! “

But he merely looked at me, then turned, and regardless of my loud calls to him, he walked to his room with an even step and without looking round.

“If it had not been for Liza nothing of this would have happened,” I decided inwardly. Then, after waiting a minute, I went myself behind his screen with a dignified and solemn air, though my heart was beating slowly and violently.

“Apollon,” I said quietly and emphatically, though I was breathless, “go at once without a minute’s delay and fetch the police-officer.”

He had meanwhile settled himself at his table, put on his spectacles and taken up some sewing. But, hearing my order, he burst into a guffaw.

“At once, go this minute! Go on, or else you can’t imagine what will happen.”

“You are certainly out of your mind,” he observed, without even raising his head, lisping as deliberately as ever and threading his needle.”Whoever heard of a man sending for the police against himself? And as for being frightened–you are upsetting yourself about nothing, for nothing will come of it.”

“Go! ” I shrieked, clutching him by the shoulder. I felt I should strike him in a minute.

But I did not notice the door from the passage softly and slowly open at that instant and a figure come in, stop short, and begin staring at us in perplexity I glanced, nearly swooned with shame, and rushed back to my room. There, clutching at my hair with both hands, I leaned my head against the wall and stood motionless in that position.