is quiet old house. Involuntarily I asked myself,
"How have we, the house and I, managed to remain apart so long?" and,
hurrying from spot to spot, ran to see if all the other rooms were still
the same. Yes, everything was unchanged, except that everything had
become smaller and lower, and I myself taller, heavier, and more filled
out. Yet, even as I was, the old house received me back into its arms,
and aroused in me with every board, every window, every step of the
stairs, and every sound the shadows of forms, feelings, and events of
the happy but irrevocable past. When we entered our old night nursery,
all my childish fears lurked once more in the darkness of the corners
and doorway. When we passed into the drawing-room, I could feel the old
calm motherly love diffusing itself from every object in the apartment.
In the breakfast-room, the noisy, careless merriment of childhood seemed
merely to be waiting to wake to life again. In the divannaia
(whither Foka first conducted us, and where he had prepared our beds)
everything--mirror, screen, old wooden ikon, the lumps on the walls
covered with white paper--seemed to speak of suffering and of death and
of what would never come back to us again.

We got into bed, and Foka, bidding us good-night, retired.

"It was in this room that Mamma died, was it not?" said Woloda.

I made no reply, but pretended to be asleep. If I had said anything I
should have burst into tears. On awaking next morning, I beheld Papa
sitting on Woloda's bed in his dressing gown and slippers and smoking a
cigar. Leaping up with a merry hoist of the shoulders, he came over to
me, slapped me on the back with his great hand, and presented me his
cheek to press my lips to.

"Well done, DIPLOMAT!" he said in his most kindly jesting tone as he
looked at me with his small bright eyes. "Woloda tells me you have
passed the examinations well for a youngster, and that is a splendid
thing. Unless you start and play the fool, I shall have another fine
little fellow in you. Thanks, my dear boy. Well, we will have a grand
time of it here now, and in the winter, perhaps, we shall move to St.
Petersburg. I only wish the hunting was not over yet, or I could have
given you some amusement in THAT way. Can you shoot, Woldemar? However,
whether there is any game or not, I will take you out some day. Next
winter, if God pleases, we will move to St. Petersburg, and you shall
meet people, and make friends, for you are now