"You'd make enviable bridegrooms for any of them; you're all good workers, and you don't drink--but you don't pay any attention to them.

Besides, people are saying that girls of questionable character come to you." "Well, of course!" exclaimed Pavel, his brow contracting in a frown of disgust.
"In the bog everything smells of rottenness!" said the Little Russian with a sigh.

"Why don't you, mother, explain to the foolish girls what it is to be married, so that they shouldn't be in such a hurry to get their bones broken ?" "Oh, well," said the mother, "they see the misery in store for them, they understand, but what can they do?
They have no other choice!" "It's a queer way they have of understanding, else they'd find a choice," observed Pavel.
The mother looked into his austere face.
"Why don't you teach them?
Why don't you invite some of the cleverer ones ?" "That won't do!" the son replied dryly.
"Suppose we try ?" said the Little Russian.
After a short silence Pavel said: "Couples will be formed; couples will walk together; then some will get married, and that's all." The mother became thoughtful.

Pavel's austerity worried her.

She saw that his advice was taken even by his older comrades, such as the Little Russian; but it seemed to her that all were afraid of him, and no one loved him because he was so stern.
Once when she had lain down to sleep, and her son and the Little Russian were still reading, she overheard their low conversation through the thin partition.
"You know I like Natasha," suddenly ejaculated the Little Russian in an undertone.
"I know," answered Pavel after a pause.
"Yes!" The mother heard the Little Russian rise and begin to walk.