XXVI.
What Awaited Us in the Country
On the 25th of April we dismounted from the road carriage, at the veranda of the Petróvskoe house. When we left Moscow, papa was lost in thought, and upon Volódya's asking whether mamma was not ill, he looked at him with sadness, and silently nodded his head. During the journey, he became perceptibly calmer; but as we approached our home, his face assumed an even more sad expression, and when, upon leaving the carriage, he asked of Fóka, who came running out of breath: "Where is Natálya Nikoláevna?" his voice was not firm, and there were tears in his eyes. Good old Fóka stealthily looked at us, dropped his eyes, and, opening the door to the antechamber, answered, with his face turned away:
"This is the sixth day she has not left the chamber."
Mílka, who, as I later learned, had not stopped whining since the first day when mamma became ill, joyfully rushed up to father, jumped on him, whined, and licked his hands; but he pushed her aside and went into the sitting-room, thence into the sofa-room, from which a door led straight into mamma's chamber. The nearer he approached this room, the more his unrest was to be noticed in all his movements. As he entered the sofa-room, he walked on tiptoe, barely drew breath, and made the sign of the cross before he had the courage to turn the latch of the closed door. Just then, unkempt,
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