ed husband, but also from
desiring to visit Madame Annette's and order there a lovely cap, a hat
trimmed with a magnificent blue ostrich feather, and a blue Venetian
velvet bodice which was to expose to the public gaze the snowy, well
shaped breast and arms which no one had yet gazed upon except her
husband and maids. Of course Katenka sided with her mother and, in
general, there became established between Avdotia and ourselves, from
the day of her arrival, the most extraordinary and burlesque order of
relations. As soon as she stepped from the carriage, Woloda assumed an
air of great seriousness and ceremony, and, advancing towards her with
much bowing and scraping, said in the tone of one who is presenting
something for acceptance:

"I have the honour to greet the arrival of our dear Mamma, and to kiss
her hand."

"Ah, my dear son!" she replied with her beautiful, unvarying smile.

"And do not forget the younger son," I said as I also approached her
hand, with an involuntary imitation of Woloda's voice and expression.

Had our stepmother and ourselves been certain of any mutual affection,
that expression might have signified contempt for any outward
manifestation of our love. Had we been ill-disposed towards one another,
it might have denoted irony, or contempt for pretence, or a desire to
conceal from Papa (standing by the while) our real relations, as well
as many other thoughts and sentiments. But, as a matter of fact, that
expression (which well consorted with Avdotia's own spirit) simply
signified nothing at all--simply concealed the absence of any definite
relations between us. In later life I often had occasion to remark, in
the case of other families whose members anticipated among themselves
relations not altogether harmonious, the sort of provisional, burlesque
relations which they formed for daily use; and it was just such
relations as those which now became established between ourselves and
our stepmother. We scarcely ever strayed beyond them, but were polite
to her, conversed with her in French, bowed and scraped before her, and
called her "chere Maman"--a term to which she always responded in a tone
of similar lightness and with her beautiful, unchanging smile. Only the
lachrymose Lubotshka, with her goose feet and artless prattle, really
liked our stepmother, or tried, in her naive and frequently awkward way,
to bring her and ourselves together: wherefore the only person in the
world for whom, besid