ut us to
shame!" cried the girl by the window, suddenly turning to her father with
a disdainful and contemptuous air.

"Wait a little, Varvara!" cried her father, speaking peremptorily but
looking at her quite approvingly. "That's her character," he said,
addressing Alyosha again.

"And in all nature there was naught
That could find favor in his eyes--

or rather in the feminine: that could find favor in her eyes. But now let
me present you to my wife, Arina Petrovna. She is crippled, she is
forty-three; she can move, but very little. She is of humble origin. Arina
Petrovna, compose your countenance. This is Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov.
Get up, Alexey Fyodorovitch." He took him by the hand and with unexpected
force pulled him up. "You must stand up to be introduced to a lady. It's
not the Karamazov, mamma, who ... h'm ... etcetera, but his brother,
radiant with modest virtues. Come, Arina Petrovna, come, mamma, first your
hand to be kissed."

And he kissed his wife's hand respectfully and even tenderly. The girl at
the window turned her back indignantly on the scene; an expression of
extraordinary cordiality came over the haughtily inquiring face of the
woman.

"Good morning! Sit down, Mr. Tchernomazov," she said.

"Karamazov, mamma, Karamazov. We are of humble origin," he whispered
again.

"Well, Karamazov, or whatever it is, but I always think of
Tchernomazov.... Sit down. Why has he pulled you up? He calls me crippled,
but I am not, only my legs are swollen like barrels, and I am shriveled up
myself. Once I used to be so fat, but now it's as though I had swallowed a
needle."

"We are of humble origin," the captain muttered again.

"Oh, father, father!" the hunchback girl, who had till then been silent on
her chair, said suddenly, and she hid her eyes in her handkerchief.

"Buffoon!" blurted out the girl at the window.

"Have you heard our news?" said the mother, pointing at her daughters.
"It's like clouds coming over; the clouds pass and we have music again.
When we were with the army, we used to have many such guests. I don't mean
to make any comparisons; every one to their taste. The deacon's wife used
to come then and say, 'Alexandr Alexandrovitch is a man of the noblest
heart, but Nastasya Petrovna,' she would say, 'is of the brood of hell.'
'Well,' I said, 'that's a matter of taste; but you are a little spitfire.'
'And you want keeping in your place,' says she. 'You black sword,' sai