ouse?"

Yulia flushed with emotion. As he finished, the priest gave her the
cross to kiss, and said in quite a different tone of voice:

"Now Fyodor Fyodorovitch must be married; it's high time."

The choir began singing once more, people began moving, and the
room was noisy again. The old man, much touched, with his eyes full
of tears, kissed Yulia three times, made the sign of the cross over
her face, and said:

"This is your home. I'm an old man and need nothing."

The clerks congratulated her and said something, but the choir was
singing so loud that nothing else could be heard. Then they had
lunch and drank champagne. She sat beside the old father, and he
talked to her, saying that families ought not to be parted but live
together in one house; that separation and disunion led to permanent
rupture.

"I've made money and the children only do the spending of it," he
said. "Now, you live with me and save money. It's time for an old
man like me to rest."

Yulia had all the time a vision of Fyodor flitting about so like
her husband, but shyer and more restless; he fussed about her and
often kissed her hand.

"We are plain people, little sister," he said, and patches of red
came into his face as he spoke. "We live simply in Russian style,
like Christians, little sister."

As they went home, Laptev felt greatly relieved that everything had
gone off so well, and that nothing outrageous had happened as he
had expected. He said to his wife:

"You're surprised that such a stalwart, broad-shouldered father
should have such stunted, narrow-chested sons as Fyodor and me.
Yes; but it's easy to explain! My father married my mother when he
was forty-five, and she was only seventeen. She turned pale and
trembled in his presence. Nina was born first--born of a comparatively
healthy mother, and so she was finer and sturdier than we were.
Fyodor and I were begotten and born after mother had been worn out
by terror. I can remember my father correcting me--or, to speak
plainly, beating me--before I was five years old. He used to
thrash me with a birch, pull my ears, hit me on the head, and every
morning when I woke up my first thought was whether he would beat
me that day. Play and childish mischief was forbidden us. We had
to go to morning service and to early mass. When we met priests or
monks we had to kiss their hands; at home we had to sing hymns.
Here you are religious and love all that, but I'm afraid of religion,
a