able and
has supper. Ivan, the oldest and most respectable of the waiters,
serves him, hands him Lafitte No. 17, and every one at the club--
the members of the committee, the cook and waiters--know what he
likes and what he doesn't like and do their very utmost to satisfy
him, or else he is sure to fly into a rage and bang on the floor
with his stick.

As he eats his supper, he turns round from time to time and puts
in his spoke in some conversation:

"What are you talking about? Eh? Whom?"

And when at a neighbouring table there is talk of the Turkins, he
asks:

"What Turkins are you speaking of? Do you mean the people whose
daughter plays on the piano?"

That is all that can be said about him.

And the Turkins? Ivan Petrovitch has grown no older; he is not
changed in the least, and still makes jokes and tells anecdotes as
of old. Vera Iosifovna still reads her novels aloud to her visitors
with eagerness and touching simplicity. And Kitten plays the piano
for four hours every day. She has grown visibly older, is constantly
ailing, and every autumn goes to the Crimea with her mother. When
Ivan Petrovitch sees them off at the station, he wipes his tears
as the train starts, and shouts:

"Good-bye, if you please."

And he waves his handkerchief.

THE HEAD OF THE FAMILY

IT is, as a rule, after losing heavily at cards or after a drinking-bout
when an attack of dyspepsia is setting in that Stepan Stepanitch
Zhilin wakes up in an exceptionally gloomy frame of mind. He looks
sour, rumpled, and dishevelled; there is an expression of displeasure
on his grey face, as though he were offended or disgusted by
something. He dresses slowly, sips his Vichy water deliberately,
and begins walking about the rooms.

"I should like to know what b-b-beast comes in here and does not
shut the door!" he grumbles angrily, wrapping his dressing-gown
about him and spitting loudly. "Take away that paper! Why is it
lying about here? We keep twenty servants, and the place is more
untidy than a pot-house. Who was that ringing? Who the devil is
that?"

"That's Anfissa, the midwife who brought our Fedya into the world,"
answers his wife.

"Always hanging about . . . these cadging toadies!"

"There's no making you out, Stepan Stepanitch. You asked her yourself,
and now you scold."

"I am not scolding; I am speaking. You might find something to do,
my dear, instead of sitting with your hands in your lap trying to
pick a quarrel.