“What shall we do now?” he asked sadly.
Tiburtsi, who was sitting on a bench with his head sunk dejectedly on his breast, also looked at me, with a question in his eyes. I therefore tried to look as careless as possible, and said:
“Never mind; nurse has probably forgotten all about it by now.”
But the old woman had not forgotten. When I reached home that day I again found Yanush at the garden gate. Sonia’s eyes were red with weeping and our nurse threw me an angry, icy glance and muttered something between her toothless gums.
My father asked me where I had been, and having listened attentively to my usual answer, confined himself to telling me not to leave the house without his permission under any circumstances whatsoever. This command was categorical and absolutely peremptory. I dared not disobey it, and at the same time I could not make up my mind to ask my father for leave to go to my friends.
Four weary days passed. I spent my time roaming dejectedly about the garden, gazing longingly in the direction of the hill, and waiting, too, for the storm which I felt was gathering over my head. I had no idea what the future might bring, but my heart was as heavy as lead. No one had ever punished me in my life; my father had never so much as laid a finger on me, and I had never heard a harsh word from his lips, but I was suffering now from an oppressive sense of coming misfortune.
At last my father summoned me to his study. I opened the door and stopped timidly on the threshold. The melancholy autumn sun was shining in through the windows. My father was sitting in an arm chair before a portrait of my mother, and did not turn to look at me as I came in. I could hear the anxious beating of my own heart.
At last my father turned round; I raised my eyes and instantly dropped them again. My father’s face looked terrible to me. Half a minute passed, and I could feel his stern, fixed, withering gaze riveted upon me.
“Did you take your sister’s doll?”
The words fell upon my ears so suddenly and sharply that I quivered.