ad always
till then been so jealous of her husband's dignity, absolutely refused
to notice it; or, at any rate, attached no consequence to it. The young
man became a favourite, ate, drank, and almost slept in the house. Von
Lembke tried to defend himself, called him "young man" before other
people, and slapped him patronisingly on the shoulder, but made no
impression. Pyotr Stepanovitch always seemed to be laughing in his face
even when he appeared on the surface to be talking seriously to him, and
he would say the most startling things to him before company. Returning
home one day he found the young man had installed himself in his study
and was asleep on the sofa there, uninvited. He explained that he had
come in, and finding no one at home had "had a good sleep."

Von Lembke was offended and again complained to his wife. Laughing at
his irritability she observed tartly that he evidently did not know how
to keep up his own dignity; and that with her, anyway, "the boy" had
never permitted himself any undue familiarity, "he was naive and fresh
indeed, though not regardful of the conventions of society." Von Lembke
sulked. This time she made peace between them. Pyotr Stepanovitch did
not go so far as to apologise, but got out of it with a coarse jest,
which might at another time have been taken for a fresh offence, but
was accepted on this occasion as a token of repentance. The weak spot
in Andrey Antonovitch's position was that he had blundered in the first
instance by divulging the secret of his novel to him. Imagining him
to be an ardent young man of poetic feeling and having long dreamed
of securing a listener, he had, during the early days of their
acquaintance, on one occasion read aloud two chapters to him. The young
man had listened without disguising his boredom, had rudely yawned,
had vouchsafed no word of praise; but on leaving had asked for the
manuscript that he might form an opinion of it at his leisure, and
Andrey Antonovitch had given it him. He had not returned the manuscript
since, though he dropped in every day, and had turned off all inquiries
with a laugh. Afterwards he declared that he had lost it in the street.
At the time Yulia Mihailovna was terribly angry with her husband when
she heard of it.

"Perhaps you told him about the church too?" she burst out almost in
dismay.

Von Lembke unmistakably began to brood, and brooding was bad for him,
and had been forbidden by the doctors. Apart from the