for a palace, and you could occupy a whole floor of it if you liked, and keep away from me for weeks together. Will you come with me or will you not?”
“First of all, let me ask of you ,” replied Polina, “whether you are intending to depart at once?”
“What? You suppose me to be jesting? I have said that I am going, and I am going. Today I have squandered fifteen thousand roubles at that accursed roulette of yours, and though, five years ago, I promised the people of a certain suburb of Moscow to build them a stone church in place of a wooden one, I have been fooling away my money here! However, I am going back now to build my church.”
“But what about the waters, Grandmamma? Surely you came here to take the waters?”
“You and your waters! Do not anger me, Prascovia. Surely you are trying to? Say, then: will you, or will you not, come with me?”
“Grandmamma,” Polina replied