d I,
'who asked you to teach me?' 'But my breath,' says she, 'is clean, and
yours is unclean.' 'You ask all the officers whether my breath is
unclean.' And ever since then I had it in my mind. Not long ago I was
sitting here as I am now, when I saw that very general come in who came
here for Easter, and I asked him: 'Your Excellency,' said I, 'can a lady's
breath be unpleasant?' 'Yes,' he answered; 'you ought to open a
window-pane or open the door, for the air is not fresh here.' And they all
go on like that! And what is my breath to them? The dead smell worse
still! 'I won't spoil the air,' said I, 'I'll order some slippers and go
away.' My darlings, don't blame your own mother! Nikolay Ilyitch, how is
it I can't please you? There's only Ilusha who comes home from school and
loves me. Yesterday he brought me an apple. Forgive your own
mother--forgive a poor lonely creature! Why has my breath become unpleasant
to you?"

And the poor mad woman broke into sobs, and tears streamed down her
cheeks. The captain rushed up to her.

"Mamma, mamma, my dear, give over! You are not lonely. Every one loves
you, every one adores you." He began kissing both her hands again and
tenderly stroking her face; taking the dinner-napkin, he began wiping away
her tears. Alyosha fancied that he too had tears in his eyes. "There, you
see, you hear?" he turned with a sort of fury to Alyosha, pointing to the
poor imbecile.

"I see and hear," muttered Alyosha.

"Father, father, how can you--with him! Let him alone!" cried the boy,
sitting up in his bed and gazing at his father with glowing eyes.

"Do give over fooling, showing off your silly antics which never lead to
anything!" shouted Varvara, stamping her foot with passion.

"Your anger is quite just this time, Varvara, and I'll make haste to
satisfy you. Come, put on your cap, Alexey Fyodorovitch, and I'll put on
mine. We will go out. I have a word to say to you in earnest, but not
within these walls. This girl sitting here is my daughter Nina; I forgot
to introduce her to you. She is a heavenly angel incarnate ... who has
flown down to us mortals,... if you can understand."

"There he is shaking all over, as though he is in convulsions!" Varvara
went on indignantly.

"And she there stamping her foot at me and calling me a fool just now, she
is a heavenly angel incarnate too, and she has good reason to call me so.
Come along, Alexey Fyodorovitch, we must make an end."

And, snatchin