III.
A NEW POINT OF VIEW
Katenka was with me in the britchka; her lovely head inclined as she gazed pensively at the roadway. I looked at her in silence and wondered what had brought the unchildlike expression of sadness to her face which I now observed for the first time there.
“We shall soon be in Moscow,” I said at last. “How large do you suppose it is?”
“I don’t know,” she replied.
“Well, but how large do you imagine? As large as Serpukhov?”
“What do you say?”
“Nothing.”
Yet the instinctive feeling which enables one person to guess the thoughts of another and serves as a guiding thread in conversation soon made Katenka feel that her indifference was disagreeable to me; wherefore she raised her head presently, and, turning round, said:
“Did your Papa tell you that we girls too were going to live at your Grandmamma’s?”
“Yes, he said that we should all live there.”