look in his agitated,
quivering face. Growing older, she changed, without noticing it, her
suspicious and cold relation toward the old man. In his words she now
began to find the same ideas that were in her books, and this won her
over on her father's side, involuntarily causing the girl to prefer
his live words to the cold letters of the book. Always overwhelmed with
business affairs, always alert and clever, he went his own way alone,
and she perceived his solitude, knew how painful it was, and her
relations toward her father grew in warmth. At times she even entered
into arguments with the old man; he always regarded her remarks
contemptuously and sarcastically; but more tenderly and attentively from
time to time.

"If the deceased Ignat could read in the newspapers of the indecent life
his son is leading, he would have killed Foma!" said Mayakin, striking
the table with his fists. "How they have written it up! It's a
disgrace!"

"He deserves it," said Lubov.

"I don't say it was done at random! They've barked at him, as was
necessary. And who was it that got into such a fit of anger?"

"What difference does it make to you?" asked the girl.

"It's interesting to know. How cleverly the rascal described Foma's
behaviour. Evidently he must have been with him and witnessed all the
indecency himself."

"Oh, no, he wouldn't go with Foma on a spree!' said Lubov, confidently,
and blushed deeply at her father's searching look.

"So! You have fine acquaintances, Lubka!" said Mayakin with humorous
bitterness. "Well, who wrote it?"

"What do you wish to know it for, papa?"

"Come, tell me!"

She had no desire to tell, but the old man persisted, and his voice was
growing more and more dry and angry. Then she asked him uneasily:

"And you will not do him any ill for it?"

"I? I will--bite his head off! Fool! What can I do to him? They, these
writers, are not a foolish lot and are therefore a power--a power, the
devils! And I am not the governor, and even he cannot put one's hand out
of joint or tie one's tongue. Like mice, they gnaw us little by little.
And we have to poison them not with matches, but with roubles. Yes!
Well, who is it?"

"Do you remember, when I was going to school, a Gymnasium student used
to come up to us. Yozhov? Such a dark little fellow!"

"Mm! Of course, I saw him. I know him. So it's he?"

"Yes."

"The little mouse! Even at that time one could see already that
something wrong would c