x days afterwards he would
not show himself at the school. His mother would come to the
head-master and beg him for God's sake: 'Be so kind, sir, as to
find my Mishka, and flog him, the rascal!' And the head-master would
say to her: 'Upon my word, madam, our five porters aren't a match
for him!'"

"Good heavens, to think of such ruffians being born," whispers
Pelageya Ivanovna, looking at her husband in horror. "What a trial
for the poor mother!"

A silence follows. Styopa yawns loudly, and scrutinises the Chinaman
on the tea-caddy whom he has seen a thousand times already. Markovna
and the two aunts sip tea carefully out of their saucers. The air
is still and stifling from the stove. . . . Faces and gestures
betray the sloth and repletion that comes when the stomach is full,
and yet one must go on eating. The samovar, the cups, and the
table-cloth are cleared away, but still the family sits on at the
table. . . . Pelageya Ivanovna is continually jumping up and, with
an expression of alarm on her face, running off into the kitchen,
to talk to the cook about the supper. The two aunts go on sitting
in the same position immovably, with their arms folded across their
bosoms and doze, staring with their pewtery little eyes at the lamp.
Markovna hiccups every minute and asks:

"Why is it I have the hiccups? I don't think I have eaten anything
to account for it . . . nor drunk anything either. . . . Hic!"

Pavel Vassilitch and Styopa sit side by side, with their heads
touching, and, bending over the table, examine a volume of the
"Neva" for 1878.

"'The monument of Leonardo da Vinci, facing the gallery of Victor
Emmanuel at Milan.' I say! . . . After the style of a triumphal
arch. . . . A cavalier with his lady. . . . And there are little
men in the distance. . . ."

"That little man is like a schoolfellow of mine called Niskubin,"
says Styopa.

"Turn over. . . . 'The proboscis of the common house-fly seen under
the microscope.' So that's a proboscis! I say--a fly. Whatever
would a bug look like under a microscope, my boy? Wouldn't it be
horrid!"

The old-fashioned clock in the drawing-room does not strike, but
coughs ten times huskily as though it had a cold. The cook, Anna,
comes into the dining-room, and plumps down at the master's feet.

"Forgive me, for Christ's sake, Pavel Vassilitch!" she says, getting
up, flushed all over.

"You forgive me, too, for Christ's sake," Pavel Vassilitch responds
unconcernedl