t. He had noticed that these extraordinary
and charming people, father and mother, were sometimes unhappy and
were hiding this from everybody. Therefore he was also concealing his
discovery, and gave everybody the impression that all was well. Many
times he found mamma crying somewhere in a corner in the drawing room,
or in the bedroom--his own room was next to her bedroom--and one night,
very late, almost at dawn, he heard the terribly loud and angry voice of
father and the weeping voice of mother. He lay a long time, holding his
breath, but then he was so terrified by that unusual conversation in the
middle of the night that he could not restrain himself and he asked his
nurse in a soft voice:

"What are they saying?"

And the nurse answered quickly in a whisper:

"Sleep, sleep. They are not saying anything."

"I am coming over to your bed."

"Aren't you ashamed of yourself? Such a big boy!"

"I am coming over to your bed."

Thus, terribly afraid lest they should be heard, they spoke in whispers
and argued in the dark; and the end was that Yura moved over to nurse's
bed, upon her rough, but cosy and warm blanket.

In the morning papa and mamma were very cheerful and Yura pretended that
he believed them and it seemed that he really did believe them. But that
same evening, and perhaps it was another evening, he noticed his father
crying. It happened in the following way: He was passing his father's
study, and the door was half open; he heard a noise and he looked in
quietly--father lay face downward upon his couch and cried aloud. There
was no one else in the room. Yura went away, turned about in his room
and came back--the door was still half open, no one but father was in
the room, and he was still sobbing. If he cried quietly, Yura could
understand it, but he sobbed loudly, he moaned in a heavy voice and his
teeth were gnashing terribly. He lay there, covering the entire couch,
hiding his head under his broad shoulders, sniffing heavily--and that
was beyond his understanding. And on the table, on the large table
covered with pencils, papers and a wealth of other things, stood the
lamp burning with a red flame, and smoking--a flat, greyish black strip
of smoke was coming out and bending in all directions.

Suddenly father heaved a loud sigh and stirred. Yura walked away
quietly. And then all was the same as ever. No one would have learned of
this; but the image of the enormous, mysterious and charming man wh