nd had he
not seen that during this time papa's face was red, with a dark blue,
seemingly lengthened nose? And Kolya had reflected: "Papa looks like a
turkey." Had not Kolya--partly through the fondness for pranks and the
mischievousness natural to all boys, partly through
tedium--accidentally discovered in an unlocked drawer of papa's writing
table an enormous collection of cards, whereon was represented just
that which shop clerks call the crowning of love, and worldly
nincompoops--the unearthly passion?

And had he not seen, that every time before the visit of the
sweet-scented and bestarched Paul Edwardovich, some ninny with some
embassy, with whom mamma, in imitation of the fashionable St.
Petersburg promenades to the Strelka, used to ride to the Dnieper to
contemplate the sun setting on the other side of the river, in the
Chernigovskaya district--had he not seen how mamma's bosom went, and
how her cheeks glowed under the powder; had he not detected at these
moments many new and strange things; had he not heard her voice, an
altogether unknown voice, like an actor's; nervously breaking off,
mercilessly malicious to those of the family and the servants, and
suddenly soft, like velvet, like a green meadow under the sun, when
Paul Edwardovich would arrive? Ah, if we people who have been made wise
by experience would know how much, and even too much, the urchins and
little girls surrounding us know, of whom we usually say:

"Well, why mind Volodya (or Petie, or Katie)? ... Why, they are little.
They don't understand anything! ..."

So also not in vain passed for Gladishev the history of his elder
brother, who had just come out of a military school into one of the
conspicuous grenadier regiments; and, being on leave until such time
when it would be possible for him to spread his wings, lived in two
separate rooms with his family. At that time Niusha, a chambermaid, was
in their service; at times they jestingly called her signorita Anita--a
seductive black-haired girl, who, if she were to change costumes, could
in appearance be taken for a dramatic actress, or a princess of the
royal blood, or a political worker. Kolya's mother manifestly
countenanced the fact that Kolya's brother, half in jest, half in
earnest, was allured by this girl. Of course, she had only the sole,
holy, maternal calculation: If it were destined, after all, for her
Borenka to fall, then let him give his purity, his innocence, his first
physical