had come up to greet him. He was conscious that he
loved the boy less, and always tried to be fair; but the boy felt
it, and did not respond with a smile to his father's chilly
smile.

"Mamma? She is up," answered the girl.

Stepan Arkadyevitch sighed. "That means that she's not slept
again all night," he thought.

"Well, is she cheerful?"

The little girl knew that there was a quarrel between her father
and mother, and that her mother could not be cheerful, and that
her father must be aware of this, and that he was pretending when
he asked about it so lightly. And she blushed for her father.
He at once perceived it, and blushed too.

"I don't know," she said. "She did not say we must do our
lessons, but she said we were to go for a walk with Miss Hoole to
grandmamma's."

"Well, go, Tanya, my darling. Oh, wait a minute, though," he
said, still holding her and stroking her soft little hand.

He took off the mantelpiece, where he had put it yesterday, a
little box of sweets, and gave her two, picking out her
favorites, a chocolate and a fondant.

"For Grisha?" said the little girl, pointing to the chocolate.

"Yes, yes." And still stroking her little shoulder, he kissed
her on the roots of her hair and neck, and let her go.

"The carriage is ready," said Matvey; "but there's some one to
see you with a petition."

"Been here long?" asked Stepan Arkadyevitch.

"Half an hour."

"How many times have I told you to tell me at once?"

"One must let you drink your coffee in peace, at least," said
Matvey, in the affectionately gruff tone with which it was
impossible to be angry.

"Well, show the person up at once," said Oblonsky, frowning with
vexation.

The petitioner, the widow of a staff captain Kalinin, came with a
request impossible and unreasonable; but Stepan Arkadyevitch, as
he generally did, made her sit down, heard her to the end
attentively without interrupting her, and gave her detailed
advice as to how and to whom to apply, and even wrote her, in his
large, sprawling, good and legible hand, a confident and fluent
little note to a personage who might be of use to her. Having
got rid of the staff captain's widow, Stepan Arkadyevitch took
his hat and stopped to recollect whether he had forgotten
anything. It appeared that he had forgotten nothing except what
he wanted to forget--his wife.

"Ah, yes!" He bowed his head, and his handsome face assumed a
harassed expression. "To go, or not