aning
Seryozha.

"I can't say I was quite pleased with him," said Alexey
Alexandrovitch, raising his eyebrows and opening his eyes. "And
Sitnikov is not satisfied with him." (Sitnikov was the tutor to
whom Seryozha's secular education had been intrusted.) "As I
have mentioned to you, there's a sort of coldness in him towards
the most important questions which ought to touch the heart of
every man and every child...." Alexey Alexandrovitch began
expounding his views on the sole question that interested him
besides the service--the education of his son.

When Alexey Alexandrovitch with Lidia Ivanovna's help had been
brought back anew to life and activity, he felt it his duty to
undertake the education of the son left on his hands. Having
never before taken any interest in educational questions, Alexey
Alexandrovitch devoted some time to the theoretical study of the
subject. After reading several books on anthropology, education,
and didactics, Alexey Alexandrovitch drew up a plan of education,
and engaging the best tutor in Petersburg to superintend it, he
set to work, and the subject continually absorbed him.

"Yes, but the heart. I see in him his father's heart, and with
such a heart a child cannot go far wrong," said Lidia Ivanovna
with enthusiasm.

"Yes, perhaps.... As for me, I do my duty. It's all I can
do."

"You're coming to me," said Countess Lidia Ivanovna, after a
pause; "we have to speak of a subject painful for you. I would
give anything to have spared you certain memories, but others
are not of the same mind. I have received a letter from _her_.
_She_ is here in Petersburg."

Alexey Alexandrovitch shuddered at the allusion to his wife, but
immediately his face assumed the deathlike rigidity which
expressed utter helplessness in the matter.

"I was expecting it," he said.

Countess Lidia Ivanovna looked at him ecstatically, and tears of
rapture at the greatness of his soul came into her eyes.

Chapter 25

When Alexey Alexandrovitch came into the Countess Lidia
Ivanovna's snug little boudoir, decorated with old china and hung
with portraits, the lady herself had not yet made her appearance.

She was changing her dress.

A cloth was laid on a round table, and on it stood a china
tea service and a silver spirit-lamp and tea kettle. Alexey
Alexandrovitch looked idly about at the endless familiar
portraits which adorned the room, and sitting down to the table,
he opened a New