the snow and a shovel had been left sticking in one of the
soft snowbanks that bordered both sides of the path. The prince went
through the conservatories, the serfs' quarters, and the outbuildings,
frowning and silent.

"Can a sleigh pass?" he asked his overseer, a venerable man, resembling
his master in manners and looks, who was accompanying him back to the
house.

"The snow is deep. I am having the avenue swept, your honor."

The prince bowed his head and went up to the porch. "God be thanked,"
thought the overseer, "the storm has blown over!"

"It would have been hard to drive up, your honor," he added. "I heard,
your honor, that a minister is coming to visit your honor."

The prince turned round to the overseer and fixed his eyes on him,
frowning.

"What? A minister? What minister? Who gave orders?" he said in his
shrill, harsh voice. "The road is not swept for the princess my
daughter, but for a minister! For me, there are no ministers!"

"Your honor, I thought..."

"You thought!" shouted the prince, his words coming more and more
rapidly and indistinctly. "You thought!... Rascals! Blackguards!... I'll
teach you to think!" and lifting his stick he swung it and would have
hit Alpatych, the overseer, had not the latter instinctively avoided the
blow. "Thought... Blackguards..." shouted the prince rapidly.

But although Alpatych, frightened at his own temerity in avoiding the
stroke, came up to the prince, bowing his bald head resignedly before
him, or perhaps for that very reason, the prince, though he continued to
shout: "Blackguards!... Throw the snow back on the road!" did not lift
his stick again but hurried into the house.

Before dinner, Princess Mary and Mademoiselle Bourienne, who knew
that the prince was in a bad humor, stood awaiting him; Mademoiselle
Bourienne with a radiant face that said: "I know nothing, I am the same
as usual," and Princess Mary pale, frightened, and with downcast eyes.
What she found hardest to bear was to know that on such occasions she
ought to behave like Mademoiselle Bourienne, but could not. She thought:
"If I seem not to notice he will think that I do not sympathize with
him; if I seem sad and out of spirits myself, he will say (as he has
done before) that I'm in the dumps."

The prince looked at his daughter's frightened face and snorted.

"Fool... or dummy!" he muttered.

"And the other one is not here. They've been telling tales," he
thought--referring to t