is out of order."

"That's right; get up a scene."

"Have you been out late? Or playing cards?"

"What if I have? Is that anybody's business? Am I obliged to give
an account of my doings to any one? It's my own money I lose, I
suppose? What I spend as well as what is spent in this house belongs
to me--me. Do you hear? To me!"

And so on, all in the same style. But at no other time is Stepan
Stepanitch so reasonable, virtuous, stern or just as at dinner,
when all his household are sitting about him. It usually begins
with the soup. After swallowing the first spoonful Zhilin suddenly
frowns and puts down his spoon.

"Damn it all!" he mutters; "I shall have to dine at a restaurant,
I suppose."

"What's wrong?" asks his wife anxiously. "Isn't the soup good?"

"One must have the taste of a pig to eat hogwash like that! There's
too much salt in it; it smells of dirty rags . . . more like bugs
than onions. . . . It's simply revolting, Anfissa Ivanovna," he
says, addressing the midwife. "Every day I give no end of money for
housekeeping. . . . I deny myself everything, and this is what they
provide for my dinner! I suppose they want me to give up the office
and go into the kitchen to do the cooking myself."