"Evidently you do not know me, Márya Ivánovna," said her brother.
"All right, all right, we shall see. Either I do not know you, or you do not know yourself. I just told you what I had on my heart, and if you will listen to me, well and good. Now we can talk about Serézha. What kind of a lad is he?" She wanted to say, "I do not like him very much," but she only said: "He resembles his mother remarkably: they are like two drops of water. Sónya is you all over,—I like her very much, very much—so sweet and open. She is a dear. Where is she, Sónya? Yes, I forgot."
"How shall I tell you? Sónya will make a good wife and a good mother, but my Serézha is clever, very clever,—nobody will take that from him. He studied well,—a little lazy. He is very fond of the natural sciences. We have been fortunate: we had an excellent, excellent teacher. He wants to enter the university,—to attend lectures on the natural sciences, chemistry—"
Márya Ivánovna scarcely listened when her brother began to speak of the natural sciences. She seemed to feel sad, especially when he mentioned chemistry. She heaved a deep sigh and replied directly to that train of thoughts which the natural sciences evoked in her.
"If you knew how sorry I am for them, Pierre," she said, with sincere, calm, humble sadness. "So sorry, so sorry. A whole life before them. Oh, how much they will suffer yet!"
"Well, we must hope that they will be more fortunate than we."
"God grant it, God grant it! It is hard to live, Pierre! Take this one advice from me, my dear: don't philosophize! What a stupid you are, Pierre, oh, what a stupid! But I must attend to matters. I have invited a lot of people, but how am I going to feed them?" She flared up, turned away, and rang the bell.
"Call Tarás!"
"Is the old man still with you?"