On being shown my verses, he called me to his side, and said: 

“Who knows, my cousin, but that he may prove to be a second Derzhavin?” Nevertheless he pinched my cheek so hard that I was only prevented from crying by the thought that it must be meant for a caress.

Gradually the other guests dispersed, and with them Papa and Woloda.  Thus only Grandmamma, the Prince, and myself were left in the drawing-room.

“Why has our dear Natalia Nicolaevna not come to-day” asked the Prince after a silence.

“Ah, my friend,” replied Grandmamma, lowering her voice and laying a hand upon the sleeve of his uniform, “she would certainly have come if she had been at liberty to do what she likes.  She wrote to me that Peter had proposed bringing her with him to town, but that she had refused, since their income had not been good this year, and she could see no real reason why the whole family need come to Moscow, seeing that Lubotshka was as yet very young and that the boys were living with me—­a fact, she said, which made her feel as safe about them as though she had been living with them herself.”

“True, it is good for the boys to be here,” went on Grandmamma, yet in a tone which showed clearly that she did not think it was so very good, “since it was more than time that they should be sent to Moscow to study, as well as to learn how to comport themselves in society.  What sort of an education could they have got in the country?  The eldest boy will soon be thirteen, and the second one eleven.  As yet, my cousin, they are quite untaught, and do not know even how to enter a room.”

“Nevertheless” said the Prince, “I cannot understand these complaints of ruined fortunes.  He has a very handsome income, and Natalia has Chabarovska, where we used to act plays, and which I know as well as I do my own hand.  It is a splendid property, and ought to bring in an excellent return.”

“Well,” said Grandmamma with a sad expression on her face, “I do not mind telling you, as my most intimate friend, that all this seems to me a mere pretext on his part for living alone, for strolling about from club to club, for attending dinner-parties, and for resorting to—­well, who knows what?  She suspects nothing; you know her angelic sweetness and her implicit trust of him in everything.  He had only to tell her that the children must go to Moscow and that she must be left behind in the country with a stupid governess for company, for her to believe him!  I almost think that if he were to say that the children must be whipped just as the Princess Barbara whips hers, she would believe even that!” and Grandmamma leant back in her arm-chair with an expression of contempt.  Then, after a moment of silence, during which she took her handkerchief out of her pocket to wipe away a few tears which had stolen down her cheeks, she went, on: 

“Yes, my friend, I often think that he cannot value and understand her properly, and that, for all her goodness and love of him and her endeavours to conceal her grief (which, however as I know only too well, exists).  She cannot really he happy with him.  Mark my words if he does not—­” Here Grandmamma buried her face in the handkerchief.