wanting to marry you-a drunkard. The linen my mother gave me you
drank; and now you've been to buy a coat-and have drunk it, too!"

Simon tried to explain to his wife that he had only spent twenty
kopeks; tried to tell how he had found the man--but Matryona would
not let him get a word in. She talked nineteen to the dozen, and
dragged in things that had happened ten years before.

Matryona talked and talked, and at last she flew at Simon and seized
him by the sleeve.

"Give me my jacket. It is the only one I have, and you must needs
take it from me and wear it yourself. Give it here, you mangy dog,
and may the devil take you."

Simon began to pull off the jacket, and turned a sleeve of it inside
out; Matryona seized the jacket and it burst its seams, She snatched
it up, threw it over her head and went to the door. She meant to go
out, but stopped undecided--she wanted to work off her anger, but
she also wanted to learn what sort of a man the stranger was.


IV

Matryona stopped and said: "If he were a good man he would not be
naked. Why, he hasn't even a shirt on him. If he were all right,
you would say where you came across the fellow."

"That's just what I am trying to tell you," said Simon. "As I came
to the shrine I saw him sitting all naked and frozen. It isn't