uch a multitude of
rugs, etageres, little benches, cushions and various articles of
softly-stuffed furniture that it was difficult for an inexperienced
person to turn round in it, and breathing was oppressive. Platonida
Ivanovna was sitting by the window with her knitting-needles in her hand
(she was knitting a scarf for Yashenka--the thirty-eighth, by actual
count, during the course of his existence!)--and was greatly surprised.
Aratoff rarely entered her room, and if he needed anything he always
shouted in a shrill voice from his study: "Aunt Platosha!"--But she made
him sit down and, in anticipation of his first words, pricked up her
ears, as she stared at him through her round spectacles with one eye,
and above them with the other. She did not inquire after his health, and
did not offer him tea, for she saw that he had not come for that.
Aratoff hesitated for a while ... then began to talk ... to talk about
his mother, about the way she had lived with his father, and how his
father had made her acquaintance. He knew all this perfectly well ...
but he wanted to talk precisely about that. Unluckily for him, Platosha
did not know how to converse in the least; she made very brief replies,
as though she suspected that Yasha had not come for that purpose.

"Certainly!"--she kept repeating hurriedly, as she plied her
knitting-needles almost in an angry way. "Every one knows that thy
mother was a dove ... a regular dove.... And thy father loved her as a
husband should love, faithfully and honourably, to the very grave; and
he never loved any other woman,"--she added, elevating her voice and
removing her spectacles.

"And was she of a timid disposition?" asked Aratoff, after a short
pause.

"Certainly she was. As is fitting for the female sex. The bold ones are
a recent invention."

"And were there no bold ones in your time?"

"There were such even in our day ... of course there were! But who were
they? Some street-walker, or shameless hussy or other. She would drag
her skirts about, and fling herself hither and thither at random....
What did she care? What anxiety had she? If a young fool came along, he
fell into her hands. But steady-going people despised them. Dost thou
remember ever to have beheld such in our house?"

Aratoff made no reply and returned to his study. Platonida Ivanovna
gazed after him, shook her head and again donned her spectacles, again
set to work on her scarf ... but more than once she fell int