mother, he constantly hovered about her, and the expression in his eyes seemed to say: "Look at me! I conceal nothing from you. I am all obedience and devotion, and, mind you, I am obedient and devoted not only from fear but also from loyalty." And although an inner voice constantly sounded warning that the young scoundrel was dangerous in spite of his wheedling and fawning, her heart could not resist such unremitting devotion and her hand involuntarily felt for the best piece in the dish to bestow upon the affectionate child. And yet the very sight of him at times awakened a vague fear of something puzzling and eery.

The exact opposite of Porfiry was his brother, Pavel, the most perfect embodiment of absolute passivity. As a boy he manifested no inclination whatever for study, or games, or playing with other boys, but liked to keep to himself. He would get into a corner, pout, and set to work building air castles, dreaming that he had gorged himself with oatmeal so that his legs had become thin and he had no lessons to learn, or else that he was Davidka, the shepherd, with a growing lump on his forehead, just like David's, and cracked a whip and had no lessons to learn. Arina Petrovna would gaze at him for a long time, and then her motherly feelings would well up:

"Why do you sit there like a mouse on groats?" she would scold. "Is the poison working in you already? Why don't you come over to your mother and say: 'Mamenka darling, hug me?'"

Pavel would leave his place of refuge and slowly approach his mother, as if someone were pushing him from behind. "Mamenka darling," he would repeat in a bass voice unnatural in a child, "hug me."

"Get out of my sight, you sneak. You think if you get into your corner I don't understand. You are mistaken, my darling. I see through and through you. Your plans and projects are as clear as if they were spread on the palm of my hand."

And Pavel would just as slowly retrace his steps and bury himself again in his corner.

Years passed by, and Pavel Vladimirych gradually developed that apathetic, unaccountably gloomy character which often goes with absolute passivity. He was, perhaps, good, but he had done nobody any good; he was, perhaps, not without some intelligence, but he had not achieved anything intelligent in his life. He was hospitable, but people did not like to avail themselves of his hospitality. He spent money readily, but nothing good or pleasant came of his lavishness to anybody. He never harmed anybody, but that was not considered a merit. He was honest, but no one had ever heard it said: "How honorably Pavel Golovliov dealt in that affair!" It must be added that sometimes, not often, he snarled at his mother, although he feared her like poison. I repeat, he was an ill-tempered person, but back of his moroseness was nothing but sheer inertness.

When the brothers reached maturity, the difference in their characters was most conspicuous in their relation to their mother. Yudushka punctually every week sent a lengthy epistle to "mother dear," in which he informed her in the greatest detail of all the minutiæ of his life in St. Petersburg, and assured her of his disinterested filial devotion in the most carefully selected terms. As for Pavel, he wrote rarely, laconically, and sometimes even enigmatically, pulling every word out of himself with a pair of tongs, as it were.

"My adorable friend and dear mother," is what Porfiry Vladimirych wrote, for instance, "I have received the money from the peasant Yerofeyev, and I send you my most heartfelt thanks for forwarding the sum, which, according to your gracious wish, dearest mamenka, is to be spent for my maintenance. I also kiss your hands with sincere filial devotion. What worries and grieves me is the thought that you are straining your precious health all too much by your ceaseless efforts to satisfy not only our needs, but our whims as well. I don't know what brother thinks, but I——" etc., etc.

As for Pavel, what he wrote on a similar occasion was: "Dear mother, am in receipt of the money, and, according to my calculations, you still owe six and a half rubles, for which I beg to be graciously forgiven."

When Arina Petrovna wrote reprimanding the children for their extravagance—she did so rather frequently, although there was no serious necessity for it—Porfisha invariably received her rebuke submissively and replied: "I am well aware, my dearest friend and mother, that you bear the heaviest burdens for the sake of us, your unworthy children. I know that often our behavior does not justify your motherly solicitude, and what is worse, erring humans that we are, we often forget it, for which I apologize most devotedly and sincerely, in the hope that in the course of time I will overcome my weakness and be more prudent in my expenditure of the funds that you send, my adorable friend and mother, for my maintenance and for other purposes." Pavel would answer back: "Dearest mother, though you have not as yet paid any of my debts, I accept most submissively the name of spendthrift which you choose to bestow upon me, whereof I beg most sincerely to accept my assurance."

Even the replies that the brothers made to the letter announcing the death of their sister, Anna Vladimirovna, were quite different from each other. Porfiry Vladimirych said: "The news of the death of my dear sister and good playmate, Anna Vladimirovna, has filled my heart with sorrow, a sorrow aggravated by the thought that a new cross has been given you to bear, dearest little mother, in the shape of two little orphans. Is it not sufficient that you, common benefactress to us all, deny yourself everything and, without sparing your health, concentrate all your power on the sole object of assuring the family not only the necessaries of life but also the luxuries? Believe me, it is a wicked thing to do, but now and then, I confess, I cannot refrain from grumbling. As far as I can see, the only solace for you, my dearest, in this state of affairs is to remember as often as you can all that Christ himself had to undergo." Pavel's reply ran: "The news of my sister, who has fallen a victim, I have received. I hope, however, that the Most High will rest her in His celestial tent, although this is uncertain."

Arina Petrovna reading these letters would try to guess which of the two sons would be her destruction. At times she felt certain the danger was coming from Porfiry Vladimirych.

"Look how he wags his tongue, a regular fiend at writing!" she would exclaim. "Simple Simon's nickname suits to a tee—Yudushka! Not a word of truth in all this stuff about my burdens, my cross, and the rest. Sheer lies! Not an ounce of feeling in his heart!"

At other times Pavel Vladimirych seemed to be her real enemy.

"A fool, and yet look how deftly he tries to make love to mother on the sly. 'Whereof I beg most sincerely to accept my assurance!' Wait a while! I'll teach you what 'accept assurances' means! I shall deal with you as I did with Simple Simon, and you'll find out what I mean by your 'assurances'!"

In the end a truly tragical cry would burst from her lips. "And for whom am I hoarding all this wealth? For whom am I gathering all this? I deny myself sleep and food—for whom?"

Such were the domestic circumstances of the Golovliovs at the time that the bailiff, Anton Vasilyev, reported to Arina Petrovna that Simple Simon had dissipated "the bone" flung to him, which, in view of its loss, might now be called with especial significance the "parental blessing."

Arina Petrovna sat in her bedroom, all her senses dazed. A vague, unaccountable feeling stirred within her, whether pity, born suddenly and miraculously, for her hated offspring, who, after all, was her son, or whether merely thwarted despotism, the most expert psychologist would have been unable to decide. Her sensations were utterly confused and succeeded each other with bewildering swiftness. Finally, out of the welter of her thoughts there crystallized one emotion, the fear that "the horrid creature" would again