“Pray, what do you mean by that”, said Loyka, and nudged himself into a certain amount of good humour and tried to smile.
“I mean by that, that you are the principal piece of furniture which hampers Joseph here, and that if you would walk off to the lumber-room all the rest might be permitted to remain”, sneered Vena.
“Listen, aged wife of my bosom, listen to this sapient Solomon. So long we have had him in the house and never knew his worth. We have to be banished the farm in order to duly appreciate his wisdom. Without our banishment this well of wisdom would have been for ever sealed. Ha! ha! and so I am the principal piece of furniture”, laughed old Loyka. “And, pray, what have you got to say of my aged wife yonder?”
“She requites you for your young days of courtship. Then you were always following after her, now she follows after you. But do you know what is a sad thing?”
“Well, what?” inquired old Loyka.
“That it is only grey-headed eld which tramps it to that dog-kennel which you call a pension house. It were better to begin more timely when a man is yet stout enough to bear his ills. But for an old man to take up his wallet and go a-begging—fie!”
“How am I going a-begging?” retorted Loyka, and here he felt as though he were dying of impatience to hear a little more. “You? God protect you! In your family begging and being pensioned off are one and the same thing. And in order that I may prove to you that even without begging you can steal a march upon your son, intercede with him in my behoof that I may not be expelled from those two chambers by the coach-house. For, if not, you will not have a single living soul in whom to confide your sorrows.”
“So, then, you think, Vena, I shall want some one in whom to confide my sorrows?”
“That you will, pantata, that you will. I know it from your own poor father. When he suffered most at your hands, and got a sight of me it was just as though he had bitten honey. Oh! you have no idea at all how I sweetened his life for him. I was more than sauce and seasoning”, said Vena proudly.
“Listen, aged wife of my bosom, this affects your credit in the kitchen”, laughed old Loyka.
“It affects you both, pantata”, said Vena, quickly correcting him. “But, of course, you will soon understand it all yourselves. When your dinner is brought to you up aloft yonder without salt
