, and how little of
established truth and certainty there is even in work so responsible
and so terrible in its effects as that of the teacher, of the lawyer,
of the writer. . . .

And such light and discursive thoughts as visit the brain only when
it is weary and resting began straying through Yevgeny Petrovitch's
head; there is no telling whence and why they come, they do not
remain long in the mind, but seem to glide over its surface without
sinking deeply into it. For people who are forced for whole hours,
and even days, to think by routine in one direction, such free
private thinking affords a kind of comfort, an agreeable solace.

It was between eight and nine o'clock in the evening. Overhead, on
the second storey, someone was walking up and down, and on the floor
above that four hands were playing scales. The pacing of the man
overhead who, to judge from his nervous step, was thinking of
something harassing, or was suffering from toothache, and the
monotonous scales gave the stillness of the evening a drowsiness
that disposed to lazy reveries. In the nursery, two rooms away, the
governess and Seryozha were talking.

"Pa-pa has come!" carolled the child. "Papa has co-ome. Pa! Pa!
Pa!"

"_Votre pere vous appelle, allez vite!_" cried the governess, shrill
as a frightened bird. "I am speaking to you!"

"What am I to say to him, though?" Yevgeny Petrovitch wondered.

But before he had time to think of anything whatever his son Seryozha,
a boy of seven, walked into the study.

He was a child whose sex could only have been guessed from his
dress: weakly, white-faced, and fragile. He was limp like a hot-house
plant, and everything about him seemed extraordinarily soft and
tender: his movements, his curly hair, the look in his eyes, his
velvet jacket.

"Good evening, papa!" he said, in a soft voice, clambering on to
his father's knee and giving him a rapid kiss on his neck. "Did you
send for me?"

"Excuse me, Sergey Yevgenitch," answered the prosecutor, removing
him from his knee. "Before kissing we must have a talk, and a serious
talk . . . I am angry with you, and don't love you any more. I tell
you, my boy, I don't love you, and you are no son of mine. . . ."

Seryozha looked intently at his father, then shifted his eyes to
the table, and shrugged his shoulders.

"What have I done to you?" he asked in perplexity, blinking. "I
haven't been in your study all day, and I haven't touched anything."

"Nataly