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But the general had now worked himself up to a state of great excitement. He rushed indoors and roused everyone: "I tell you, it will freeze and the pipes will burst unless you let the water run a little. There are 27 degrees of frost!" "But the tap is in the kitchen and Leontyevna is sleeping there," objected Lina. "Well, waken her!" "Impossible!"

Constantine had gone into town, to a club of cocaine-eaters, to drug himself, utter vulgar platitudes, and kiss the hands of loose women. Leontyevna, the Cyclop maid from the Exchange, lay down on a bench in the kitchen to rest from the day's work, said her prayers, and fell into a sound sleep. The general stood on the door-steps.

The Cyclop, Leontyevna, Sergius Andreevich's servant, tramped in heavily with her man's boots from the Labour Exchange; her solitary eye peered searchingly into Anna Andreevna's stove. "I'll see she's not deceiving us over the firewood," she shouted aggressively: "Oh, what a store she's got!" "But you have used the birch-wood," the general hit back from his room.

"Certainly, I am not one of the heirs," the general retorted smoothly. The night and the frost swept over the Volga, the Steppe, and Saratov. The general was unable to sleep. Kseniya and Lena were crying in the attic. Constantine arrived home late, and noiselessly crept in to Leontyevna. Bluish patches of moonlight fell in through the windows. The water pipes froze in the night and burst.

"Damn rot!" snarled the general and went into the kitchen and shook Leontyevna, explaining to her about the pipes. "I will go to the Exchange and complain! Not even letting one rest!...Stealing in to an undressed woman!..." Lina jabbered her words after her like a parrot. Sergius ran in. "Leave off, please," he begged. "It is I who am responsible. Let Leontyevna sleep."

The Cyclop flew into a rage and slapped her thighs. One of the periodic scenes ensued. "What?" Leontyevna cried, "I am not trusted, I am being spied on! Lina Fedorovna, I am going to complain to the Exchange." Lina Fedorovna joined in from behind her door. "She isn't trusted, she is being spied on," she echoed, "there must be spies in this house! And they call themselves intellectual people!"

She took a bottle of something out of the cupboard, went to the window, read the label, and went away. "Marya Leontyevna, those are not the drops!" Volodya heard a woman's voice, a minute later. "That's convallaria, and Lili wants morphine. Is your son asleep? Ask him to look for it. . . ." It was Nyuta's voice. Volodya turned cold.

She peered into the stove and discovered that Leontyevna, the maid a one-eyed Cyclop had filled it with birch-wood, whereas it had been agreed that the rotting timber from the summer-house should be used as fuel first. After enjoying a cigarette of his "own" tobacco, the general went out to the courtyard for firewood, returning with a bundle of sticks from the summer-house.