"Mother, there should be only one person to manage a house. I'm not alone in that opinion, everybody says so. I know my orders are foolish. Never mind, let them be foolish. Your orders are wise. Let them be wise. Wise you are, very wise, still Yudushka left you without house or home, to shift for yourself."
The last straw was the awful discovery that Pavel Vladimirych drank. The craving had come from the loneliness of life in the country and had crept upon him stealthily, until finally it possessed him completely, and he was a doomed man. When his mother first came to live in the house, he seemed to have some scruples about drinking. He would come down from the entresol and talk to his mother quite often. She noticed that his speech was strangely incoherent but for a long time attributed it to his stupidity. She did not enjoy his visits. The chats with him oppressed her extremely. In fact he always seemed to be grumbling foolishly. Either there had been a drought for many weeks, or an overwhelming downpour of rain, or tree beetles had overrun the garden and ruined the trees, or moles had made their appearance and dug up the whole field. All this afforded an endless source for grumbling. He would come down from the entresol, seat himself opposite his mother and begin:
"There are clouds all around. Is Golovliovo far from here? The Bloodsucker had a shower yesterday and we don't get a single drop. The clouds wander about, all around here. If there were only a drop of rain for us!"
"Have you ever seen such a flood? The rye has just begun to flower and it comes pouring down. Half of the hay is rotten already, and the rain still spouts and spurts. Is Golovliovo far from here? The Bloodsucker has long since gathered in his crops, and here we're stuck. We'll have to feed our cattle on rotten hay this winter."
Arina Petrovna listened in silence to his stupid complaints, but at times her patience gave way and she said:
"Well, keep on sitting there with your arms folded."
Instantly Pavel Vladimirych would flare up.
"What would you advise me to do? Transfer the rain to Golovliovo?"
"I'm not talking about the rain, but in general."
"No 'in general,' please. Why don't you tell me straight out what you think I should do? Shall I change the climate? There's Golovliovo. When Golovliovo needs rain, it rains. When Golovliovo doesn't need rain, then it doesn't rain. And everything grows there, while here, the very opposite. Well, we'll see what you'll have to say when there isn't anything to eat."