door, or was starting for America. 'Will you be long in Kazan?' 'I shall be back in a week,' answered Aratov, standing with his back half-turned to his aunt, who was still sitting on the floor.
Platonida Ivanova tried to protest more, but Aratov answered her in an utterly unexpected and unheard-of way: 'I 'm not a child,' he shouted, and he turned pale all over, his lips trembled, and his eyes glittered wrathfully. 'I'm twenty-six, I know what I'm about, I'm free to do what I like! I suffer no one . . . Give me the money for the journey, pack my box with my clothes and linen . . . and don't torture me! I'll be back in a week, Platosha,' he added, in a somewhat softer tone.
Platosha got up, sighing and groaning, and, without further protest, crawled to her room. Yasha had alarmed her. ' I've no head on my shoulders,' she told the cook, who was helping her to pack Yasha's things; 'no head at all, but a hive full of bees all a-buz and a-hum! He 's going off to Kazan, my good soul, to Ka-a-zan!' The cook, who had observed their dvornik the previous evening talking for a long time with a police officer, would have liked to inform her mistress of this circumstance, but did not dare, and only reflected, 'To Kazan! if only it 's nowhere farther still!' Platonida
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