order to look at papa with a smile, which then seemed to me to be one of mockery; when she pronounced it differently from what I had intended it; and when, her eyes being weak, she did not finish reading it, but handed it to papa and asked him to read it from the beginning? It seemed to me that she did so because she was tired of reading such horrible and badly scrawled verses, and because she wanted papa to read the last line, which was such an evident proof of my heartlessness. I was waiting for him to snap my nose with the poem, and to say: "Naughty boy! Do not forget your mother! Take this for it!" But nothing of the kind happened; on the contrary, after it had been read, grandmother said: "Charmant!" and kissed my brow.
The box, the drawing, and the poem were put, by the side of two batiste handkerchiefs and a snuff-box with mamma's portrait, on a sort of extension table connected with the armchair in which grandmother always sat.
"Princess Várvara Ilínichna," announced one of the two huge lackeys who stood in the back of grandmother's carriage.
Grandmother was deep in thought over the portrait, which was fastened to the shell snuff-box, and did not answer.
"Does your Grace command to ask her in?" repeated the lackey.
