After “cat and mouse”, another game followed in which the gentlemen sit on one row of chairs and the ladies on another, and choose each other for partners.  The youngest princess always chose the younger Iwin, Katenka either Woloda or Ilinka, and Sonetchka Seriosha—­nor, to my extreme astonishment, did Sonetchka seem at all embarrassed when her cavalier went and sat down beside her.  On the contrary, she only laughed her sweet, musical laugh, and made a sign with her head that he had chosen right.  Since nobody chose me, I always had the mortification of finding myself left over, and of hearing them say, “Who has been left out?  Oh, Nicolinka.  Well, do take him, somebody.”  Consequently, whenever it came to my turn to guess who had chosen me, I had to go either to my sister or to one of the ugly elder princesses.  Sonetchka seemed so absorbed in Seriosha that in her eyes I clearly existed no longer.  I do not quite know why I called her “the traitress” in my thoughts, since she had never promised to choose me instead of Seriosha, but, for all that, I felt convinced that she was treating me in a very abominable fashion.  After the game was finished, I actually saw “the traitress” (from whom I nevertheless could not withdraw my eyes) go with Seriosha and Katenka into a corner, and engage in secret confabulation.  Stealing softly round the piano which masked the conclave, I beheld the following: 

Katenka was holding up a pocket-handkerchief by two of its corners, so as to form a screen for the heads of her two companions.  “No, you have lost!  You must pay the forfeit!” cried Seriosha at that moment, and Sonetchka, who was standing in front of him, blushed like a criminal as she replied, “No, I have not lost!  Have I, Mademoiselle Katherine?” “Well, I must speak the truth,” answered Katenka, “and say that you have lost, my dear.”  Scarcely had she spoken the words when Seriosha embraced Sonetchka, and kissed her right on her rosy lips!  And Sonetchka smiled as though it were nothing, but merely something very pleasant!

Horrors!  The artful “traitress!”

XIV.  THE RETRIBUTION

Instantly, I began to feel a strong contempt for the female sex in general and Sonetchka in particular.  I began to think that there was nothing at all amusing in these games—­that they were only fit for girls, and felt as though I should like to make a great noise, or to do something of such extraordinary boldness that every one would be forced to admire it.  The opportunity soon arrived.  St. Jerome said something to Mimi, and then left the room, I could hear his footsteps ascending the staircase, and then passing across the schoolroom, and the idea occurred to me that Mimi must have told him her story about my being found on the landing, and thereupon he had gone to look at the register. (In those days, it must be remembered, I believed that St. Jerome’s whole