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Sonia knew that Katerina Ivanovna would not be satisfied now,

"till she had shown those draggletails that they were both..." To

make matters worse someone passed Sonia, from the other end of

the table, a plate with two hearts pierced with an arrow, cut out

of black bread. Katerina Ivanovna flushed crimson and at once

said aloud across the table that the man who sent it was "a

drunken ass!"

Amalia Ivanovna was foreseeing something amiss, and at the same

time deeply wounded by Katerina Ivanovna's haughtiness, and to

restore the good-humour of the company and raise herself in their

esteem she began, apropos of nothing, telling a story about an

acquaintance of hers "Karl from the chemist's," who was driving

one night in a cab, and that "the cabman wanted him to kill, and

Karl very much begged him not to kill, and wept and clasped

hands, and frightened and from fear pierced his heart." Though

Katerina Ivanovna smiled, she observed at once that Amalia

Ivanovna ought not to tell anecdotes in Russian; the latter was

still more offended, and she retorted that her "Vater aus Berlin

was a very important man, and always went with his hands in

pockets." Katerina Ivanovna could not restrain herself and

laughed so much that Amalia Ivanovna lost patience and could

scarcely control herself.