fully bad."

"It's in God's hands," sighed Fyodor. "Well, what of your wife?
She's a beauty, no doubt? I love her already. Of course, she is my
little sister now. We'll make much of her between us."

Laptev saw the broad, bent back--so familiar to him--of his
father, Fyodor Stepanovitch. The old man was sitting on a stool
near the counter, talking to a customer.

"Father, God has sent us joy!" cried Fyodor. "Brother has come!"

Fyodor Stepanovitch was a tall man of exceptionally powerful build,
so that, in spite of his wrinkles and eighty years, he still looked
a hale and vigorous man. He spoke in a deep, rich, sonorous voice,
that resounded from his broad chest as from a barrel. He wore no
beard, but a short-clipped military moustache, and smoked cigars.
As he was always too hot, he used all the year round to wear a
canvas coat at home and at the warehouse. He had lately had an
operation for cataract. His sight was bad, and he did nothing in
the business but talk to the customers and have tea and jam with
them.

Laptev bent down and kissed his head and then his lips.

"It's a good long time since we saw you, honoured sir," said the
old man--"a good long time. Well, am I to congratulate you on
entering the state of holy matrimony? Very well, then; I congratulate
you."

And he put his lips out to be kissed. Laptev bent down and kissed
him.

"Well, have you brought your young lady?" the old man asked, and
without waiting for an answer, he said, addressing the customer:"
'Herewith I beg to inform you, father, that I'm going to marry such
and such a young lady.' Yes. But as for asking for his father's
counsel or blessing, that's not in the rules nowadays. Now they go
their own way. When I married I was over forty, but I went on my
knees to my father and asked his advice. Nowadays we've none of
that."

The old man was delighted to see his son, but thought it unseemly
to show his affection or make any display of his joy. His voice and
his manner of saying "your young lady" brought back to Laptev the
depression he had always felt in the warehouse. Here every trifling
detail reminded him of the past, when he used to be flogged and put
on Lenten fare; he knew that even now boys were thrashed and punched
in the face till their noses bled, and that when those boys grew
up they would beat others. And before he had been five minutes in
the warehouse, he always felt as though he were being scolded or
punched in the face