asked:

"Do you see your father?"

"N-no!"

"Come, speak frankly, on your honour. . . . I see from your face
you are telling a fib. Once you've let a thing slip out it's no
good wriggling about it. Tell me, do you see him? Come, as a friend."

Alyosha hesitated.

"You won't tell mother?" he said.

"As though I should!"

"On your honour?"

"On my honour."

"Do you swear?"

"Ah, you provoking boy! What do you take me for?"

Alyosha looked round him, then with wide-open eyes, whispered to
him:

"Only, for goodness' sake, don't tell mother. . . . Don't tell any
one at all, for it is a secret. I hope to goodness mother won't
find out, or we should all catch it--Sonia, and I, and Pelagea
. . . . Well, listen. . . Sonia and I see father every Tuesday and
Friday. When Pelagea takes us for a walk before dinner we go to the
Apfel Restaurant, and there is father waiting for us. . . . He is
always sitting in a room apart, where you know there's a marble
table and an ash-tray in the shape of a goose without a back. . . ."

"What do you do there?"

"Nothing! First we say how-do-you-do, then we all sit round the
table, and father treats us with coffee and pies. You know Sonia
eats the meat-pies, but I can't endure meat-pies! I like the pies
made of cabbage and eggs. We eat such a lot that we have to try
hard to eat as much as we can at dinner, for fear mother should
notice."

"What do you talk about?"

"With father? About anything. He kisses us, he hugs us, tells us
all sorts of amusing jokes. Do you know, he says when we are grown
up he is going to take us to live with him. Sonia does not want to
go, but I agree. Of course, I should miss mother; but, then, I
should write her letters! It's a queer idea, but we could come and
visit her on holidays--couldn't we? Father says, too, that he
will buy me a horse. He's an awfully kind man! I can't understand
why mother does not ask him to come and live with us, and why she
forbids us to see him. You know he loves mother very much. He is
always asking us how she is and what she is doing. When she was ill
he clutched his head like this, and . . . and kept running about.
He always tells us to be obedient and respectful to her. Listen.
Is it true that we are unfortunate?"

"H'm! . . . Why?"

"That's what father says. 'You are unhappy children,' he says. It's
strange to hear him, really. 'You are unhappy,' he says, 'I am
unhappy, and mother's unhappy. You must pray to