“It is no use, Shura,” my father said at last. His voice was even and formal.

At his words, she bent her head down on her breast. The hair tumbled about her like a veil and at the base of her skull, the scalp was visible between cords of the hair heavily tossed forward. She moaned, “But you must not take Sonia away from me!” She flung back her head again and I saw that not even now was her face distorted by her feelings. Not even her mouth, filter of anger, bitterness, sorrow, became less charming, and the sweetness of its shape, the texture of its dark red flesh seemed to abate her passion, making it something strapped and aimless.

“If I go, I will take nothing but my body and my soul.”

“Soul!” She spat on the floor before her bare feet. “Does a man have a soul that cuts his wife?” She held out her scratched arm. “Sonia, look! What do you think of a father like that, eh?”

“Why do you lie before the girl? She knows I never laid my hands on you. Tell her that you broke my china coffee pot and nagged me until I was crazy!”

“I hate you. Ah, I would hate any man that cried tears like a woman.”

“And I hate you, Shura, with all my heart. You’ve ruined everything for me and I’ve had enough.”

For the briefest moment, alarm showed in my mother’s face, but then she smiled. “And so have I. If it weren’t for Sonia . . .”

“Even for Sonie I’ve had enough now. From the beginning it is all wrong.”

My mother’s insistence flagged before the determination in his voice and she could not accuse him of any specific thing, but only said, complacently, “Thank God, she’s a little girl. And by the grace of the Holy Ghost, there will be another little girl. I’ll call her little Luibka.”

“So, Luibka!” He laughed like a lunatic. “So we will call the witch’s daughter after the old hell-cat. But what if the little whore in your belly turns out to be little Ivan instead? Little, little, little Russian woman, little God damn you to a little tiny Russian hell!”

“Hush! Before the child!”

His raging voice did not alter in pitch as, wheeling upon me, he commanded, “Pray for yourself, Sonie! Sonie . . .” He faltered and then, calmed, he took my mother’s arm. “Put on your shoes, Shura, and come to the shop.”