9 o'clock
But my vife , she is always jesting and dragging me by the -- how do you call it -- the beard ! And laughing and larking ... '' His little narrow eyes wrinkled up into a wry smile : `` Ah , the larking vench ! '' In childhood , as a small lad , Alexander Alexandrovitch Agrenev had heard from listening to his mother 's conversation how -- lo and behold ! one morning at 9 o'clock Nina Kallistratovna Zamotkina had proceeded with her daughter to Doctor Chasovnikov 's flat , in order to deliver a slap in the face to his wife for having broken up the family hearth by a liaison with Paul Alexander Zamotkin , Nina Kallistratovna 's husband . The child Agrenev had vividly pictured to himself how Nina Kallistratovna had walked , holding her daughter with one hand , an attaché-case in the other : of course her bearing must have been singular , as she was going to the flat to administer a slap in the face ; no doubt she had walked either in a squatting or a bandy-legged fashion . The family hearth must have been something extremely valuable , as she was going to deliver a slap in the face on its account -- perhaps it was some kind of stove . It was highly interesting -- in the child 's imagination -- to picture Nina Kallistratovna entering the flat , swinging back her arm , and delivering the slap : her gait , her arms , the flat -- all had a sudden hidden and exceedingly curious meaning for the child .