His face was very pale and his lips trembled.

He slowly combed his hair and was about to depart without saying a word, when his wife stopped him to arrange the ribbon on his shirt, and, after toying a little with his coat, she put his hat on for him and he left the little home.
Polikey's next-door neighbors were a joiner and his wife.

A thin partition only separated the two families, and each could hear what the other said and did.

Soon after Polikey's departure a woman was heard to say: "Well, Polikey Illitch, so your mistress has sent for you!" The voice was that of the joiner's wife on the other side of the partition.

Akulina and the woman had quarrelled that morning about some trifling thing done by one of Polikey's children, and it afforded her the greatest pleasure to learn that her neighbor had been summoned into the presence of his noble mistress.