How dared you tell him?”
“It was through fright I did it. How could I dare to keep it back from him? Dmitri Fyodorovitch kept persisting every day, ‘You are deceiving me, you are hiding something from me! I’ll break both your legs for you.’ So I told him those secret signals that he might see my slavish devotion, and might be satisfied that I was not deceiving him, but was telling him all I could.”
“If you think that he’ll make use of those signals and try to get in, don’t let him in.”
“But if I should be laid up with a fit, how can I prevent him coming in then, even if I dared prevent him, knowing how desperate he is?”
“Hang it! How can you be so sure you are going to have a fit, confound you? Are you laughing at me?”
“How could I dare laugh at you? I am in no laughing humor with this fear on me. I feel I am going to have a fit. I have a presentiment. Fright alone will bring it on.”
“Confound it! If you are laid up, Grigory will be on the watch. Let Grigory know beforehand; he will be sure not to let him in.”
“I should never dare to tell Grigory Vassilyevitch about the signals without orders from my master. And as for Grigory Vassilyevitch hearing him and not admitting him, he has been ill ever since yesterday, and Marfa Ignatyevna intends to give him medicine tomorrow. They’ve just arranged it. It’s a very strange remedy of hers. Marfa Ignatyevna knows of a preparation and always keeps it. It’s a strong thing made from some herb. She has the secret of it, and she always gives it to Grigory Vassilyevitch three times a year when his lumbago’s so bad he is almost paralyzed by it. Then she takes a towel, wets it with the stuff, and rubs his whole back for half an