e....

'Goodness,' she thought, 'isn't it some attack coming on him?'...

At that instant his whole ruined life was stirred up within him.

The staircase creaked under rapidly approaching footsteps.... He pushed
her away from him, and let his head drop back on the pillow. The door
opened, and Nikolai Petrovitch entered, cheerful, fresh, and ruddy.
Mitya, as fresh and ruddy as his father, in nothing but his little
shirt, was frisking on his shoulder, catching the big buttons of his
rough country coat with his little bare toes.

Fenitchka simply flung herself upon him, and clasping him and her son
together in her arms, dropped her head on his shoulder. Nikolai
Petrovitch was surprised; Fenitchka, the reserved and staid Fenitchka,
had never given him a caress in the presence of a third person.

'What's the matter?' he said, and, glancing at his brother, he gave her
Mitya. 'You don't feel worse?' he inquired, going up to Pavel
Petrovitch.

He buried his face in a cambric handkerchief. 'No ... not at all ... on
the contrary, I am much better.'

'You were in too great a hurry to move on to the sofa. Where are you
going?' added Nikolai Petrovitch, turning round to Fenitchka; but she
had already closed the door behind her. 'I was bringing in my young
hero to show you, he's been crying for his uncle. Why has she carried
him off? What's wrong with you, though? Has anything passed between
you, eh?'

'Brother!' said Pavel Petrovitch solemnly.

Nikolai Petrovitch started. He felt dismayed, he could not have said
why himself.

'Brother,' repeated Pavel Petrovitch, 'give me your word that you will
carry out my one request.'

'What request? Tell me.'

'It is very important; the whole happiness of your life, to my idea,
depends on it. I have been thinking a great deal all this time over
what I want to say to you now.... Brother, do your duty, the duty of an
honest and generous man; put an end to the scandal and bad example you
are setting--you, the best of men!'

'What do you mean, Pavel?'

'Marry Fenitchka.... She loves you; she is the mother of your son.'

Nikolai Petrovitch stepped back a pace, and flung up his hands. 'Do you
say that, Pavel? you whom I have always regarded as the most determined
opponent of such marriages! You say that? Don't you know that it has
simply been out of respect for you that I have not done what you so
rightly call my duty?'

'You were wrong to respect me in that case,' Pavel Petrovit