neither in his games
nor in laughter, nor even in the reading of the most terrible fairy
tales.

It should be added that mamma was a beautiful woman and that everybody
was in love with her. That was good, for he felt proud of it, but that
was also bad--for he feared that she might be taken away. And every time
one of the men, one of those enormous, invariably inimical men who were
busy with themselves, looked at mamma fixedly for a long time, Yura felt
bored and uneasy. He felt like stationing himself between him and mamma,
and no matter where he went to attend to his own affairs, something was
drawing him back.

Sometimes mamma would utter a bad, terrifying phrase:

"Why are you forever staying around here? Go and play in your own room."

There was nothing left for him to do but to go away. He would take a
book along or he would sit down to draw, but that did not always help
him. Sometimes mamma would praise him for reading but sometimes she
would say again:

"You had better go to your own room, Yurochka. You see, you've spilt
water on the tablecloth again; you always do some mischief with your
drawing."

And then she would reproach him for being perverse. But he felt worst of
all when a dangerous and suspicious guest would come when Yura had to
go to bed. But when he lay down in his bed a sense of easiness came
over him and he felt as though all was ended; the lights went out, life
stopped; everything slept.

In all such cases with suspicious men Yura felt vaguely but very
strongly that he was replacing father in some way. And that made him
somewhat like a grown man--he was in a bad frame of mind, like a grown
person, but, therefore, he was unusually calculating, wise and serious.
Of course, he said nothing about this to any one, for no one would
understand him; but, by the manner in which he caressed father when he
arrived and sat down on his knees patronisingly, one could see in the
boy a man who fulfilled his duty to the end. At times father could not
understand him and would simply send him away to play or to sleep--Yura
never felt offended and went away with a feeling of great satisfaction.
He did not feel the need of being understood; he even feared it. At
times he would not tell under any circumstances why he was crying; at
times he would make believe that he was absent minded, that he heard
nothing, that he was occupied with his own affairs, but he heard and
understood.

And he had a terrible secre