“Shall I ride with thee, papa?”—I asked him.
“No,”—he replied, and his face assumed its habitual indifferently-caressing expression.—“Go alone, if thou wishest; but tell the coachman that I shall not go.”
He turned his back on me and walked swiftly away. I followed him with my eyes, until he disappeared beyond the gate. I saw his hat moving along the fence; he went into the Zasyékins’ house.
He remained with them no more than an hour, but immediately thereafter went off to town and did not return home until evening.
After dinner I went to the Zasyékins’ myself. I found no one in the drawing-room but the old Princess. When she saw me, she scratched her head under her cap with the end of her knitting-needle, and suddenly asked me: would I copy a petition for her?
“With pleasure,”—I replied, and sat down on the edge of a chair.
“Only look out, and see that you make the letters as large as possible,”—said the Princess, handing me a sheet of paper scrawled over in a slovenly manner:—“and couldn’t you do it to-day, my dear fellow?”
“I will copy it this very day, madam.”
The door of the adjoining room opened a mere crack and Zinaída’s face showed itself in the aperture,—pale, thoughtful, with hair thrown carelessly back. She stared at me with her large, cold eyes, and softly shut the door.
“Zína,—hey there, Zína!”—said the old woman. Zinaída did not answer. I carried away the old woman’s petition, and sat over it the whole evening.