“I don’t know.”
“Because you have been a lovely and well-behaved child the entire week.”
At this juncture, Julian Mastakovich, agitated to the utmost, looked round and, lowering his tone to a whisper, asked finally in an almost inaudible voice, dying away more and more from agitation and impatience:
“And will you love me, sweet girlie, when I shall come as a guest to your papa and mamma?”
Having said this, Julian Mastakovich made one more effort to kiss the lovely child; but the red-haired boy, quick to see that she was at the point of tears, seized her hands and, out of deep sympathy for her, began to whimper. Julian Mastakovich became quite angry.
“Begone, begone from here, begone!” he said to the boy. “Begone into the other room! Begone to your own fellows!”
“No, don’t go! Don’t go! You had better go,” said the young girl, “but leave him alone, leave him alone!” She was almost in tears.
Presently there was a commotion just within the door. Julian Mastakovich immediately rose to his feet, somewhat frightened. The red-haired boy was even more frightened. He left his companion and stole out silently, with his hands brushing the wall, into the dining-room. To hide his confusion, Julian Mastakovich followed him. He was as red as a lobster, and when he looked in the glass he seemed appalled as his own image. Perhaps he was annoyed at his rage and impatience. Perhaps the calculation he made earlier on his fingers had so affected him, tempting and inflaming him, that, notwithstanding his position and dignity, he was impelled to act like a young boy to attain his object, despite the fact that the object in any case could be attained only five years hence. I followed the esteemed gentleman into the dining-room and witnessed a strange scene. Julian Mastakovich, his face all red from irritation and malice, was pursuing the red-haired boy, who, retreating farther and farther from him, did not know what to do with himself in his fright.
“Begone with you! What are you doing here? Begone, you good-for-nothing! Begone! Stealing fruit, are you? Stealing fruit? Begone, good-for-nothing! Begone, unclean one! Begone, begone to the likes of yourself!”
The frightened boy, driven to desperate measures, tried to get under the table. Then his pursuer, enraged to the last degree, drew out his long batiste handkerchief and lashed it out at the cowering boy.