“So this was what my dream foreboded!” I thought to myself.  “God send that there come nothing worse!” I felt terribly sorry to have to leave Mamma, but at the same rejoiced to think that I should soon be grown up, “If we are going to-day, we shall probably have no lessons to do, and that will be splendid, However, I am sorry for Karl Ivanitch, for he will certainly be dismissed now.  That was why that envelope had been prepared for him.  I think I would almost rather stay and do lessons here than leave Mamma or hurt poor Karl.  He is miserable enough already.”

As these thoughts crossed my mind I stood looking sadly at the black ribbons on my shoes, After a few words to Karl Ivanitch about the depression of the barometer and an injunction to Jakoff not to feed the hounds, since a farewell meet was to be held after luncheon, Papa disappointed my hopes by sending us off to lessons—­though he also consoled us by promising to take us out hunting later.

On my way upstairs I made a digression to the terrace.  Near the door leading on to it Papa’s favourite hound, Milka, was lying in the sun and blinking her eyes.

“Miloshka,” I cried as I caressed her and kissed her nose, “we are going away today.  Good-bye.  Perhaps we shall never see each other again.”  I was crying and laughing at the same time.

IV —­ LESSONS

Karl Ivanitch was in a bad temper, This was clear from his contracted brows, and from the way in which he flung his frockcoat into a drawer, angrily donned his old dressing-gown again, and made deep dints with his nails to mark the place in the book of dialogues to which we were to learn by heart.  Woloda began working diligently, but I was too distracted to do anything at all.  For a long while I stared vacantly at the book; but tears at the thought of the impending separation kept rushing to my eyes and preventing me from reading a single word.  When at length the time came to repeat the dialogues to Karl (who listened to us with blinking eyes—­a very bad sign), I had no sooner reached the place where some one asks, “Wo kommen Sie her?” ("Where do you come from?”) and some one else answers him, “Ich komme vom Kaffeehaus” ("I come from the coffee-house"), than I burst into tears and, for sobbing, could not pronounce, “Haben Sie die Zeitung nicht gelesen?” ("Have you not read the newspaper?”) at all.  Next, when we came to our writing lesson, the tears kept falling from my eyes and, making a mess on the paper, as though some one had written on blotting-paper with water, Karl was very angry.  He ordered me to go down upon my knees, declared that it was all obstinacy and “puppet-comedy playing” (a favourite expression of his) on my part, threatened me with the ruler, and commanded me to say that I was sorry.  Yet for sobbing and crying I could not get a word out.  At last—­conscious, perhaps, that he was unjust—­he departed to Nicola’s pantry, and slammed the door behind him.  Nevertheless their conversation there carried to the schoolroom.