“To be sure,” observed Tcherevin phlegmatically, “if you don’t beat them, they’ll⁠ ⁠… But did you catch her with a lover?”

“Catch her? No, I didn’t,” Shishkov observed, after a pause, and; as it were, with an effort. “But I felt awfully insulted. People teased me so and Filka led the way. ‘You’ve a wife for show,’ says he, ‘for folks to look at.’ Filka invited us with others, and this was the greeting he gave me: ‘His wife is a tenderhearted soul,’ says he, ‘honourable and polite, who knows how to behave, nice in every way⁠—that’s what he thinks now. But you’ve forgotten, lad, how you smeared her gate with pitch yourself!’ I sat drunk and then he seized me by the hair suddenly and holding me by the hair he shoved me down. ‘Dance,’ says he, ‘Akulka’s husband! I’ll hold you by your hair and you dance to amuse me!’ ‘You are a scoundrel,’ I shouted. And he says to me, ‘I shall come to you with companions and thrash Akulka, your wife, before you, as much as I like.’ Then I, would you believe it, was afraid to go out of the house for a whole month. I was afraid he’d come and disgrace me. And just for that I began beating her.⁠ ⁠…”