XVI.  “KEEP ON GRINDING, AND YOU’LL HAVE FLOUR”

I passed the night in the store-room, and nothing further happened, except that on the following morning—­a Sunday—­I was removed to a small chamber adjoining the schoolroom, and once more shut up.  I began to hope that my punishment was going to be limited to confinement, and found my thoughts growing calmer under the influence of a sound, soft sleep, the clear sunlight playing upon the frost crystals of the windowpanes, and the familiar noises in the street.

Nevertheless, solitude gradually became intolerable.  I wanted to move about, and to communicate to some one all that was lying upon my heart, but not a living creature was near me.  The position was the more unpleasant because, willy-nilly, I could hear St. Jerome walking about in his room, and softly whistling some hackneyed tune.  Somehow, I felt convinced that he was whistling not because he wanted to, but because he knew it annoyed me.

At two o’clock, he and Woloda departed downstairs, and Nicola brought me up some luncheon.  When I told him what I had done and what was awaiting me he said: 

“Pshaw, sir!  Don’t be alarmed.  ’Keep on grinding, and you’ll have flour.’”

Although this expression (which also in later days has more than once helped me to preserve my firmness of mind) brought me a little comfort, the fact that I received, not bread and water only, but a whole luncheon, and even dessert, gave me much to think about.  If they had sent me no dessert, it would have meant that my punishment was to be limited to confinement; whereas it was now evident that I was looked upon as not yet punished—­that I was only being kept away from the others, as an evil-doer, until the due time of punishment.  While I was still debating the question, the key of my prison turned, and St. Jerome entered with a severe, official air.

“Come down and see your Grandmamma,” he said without looking at me.

I should have liked first to have brushed my jacket, since it was covered with dust, but St. Jerome said that that was quite unnecessary, since I was in such a deplorable moral condition that my exterior was not worth considering.  As he led me through the salon, Katenka, Lubotshka, and Woloda looked at me with much the same expression as we were wont to look at the convicts who on certain days filed past my grandmother’s house.  Likewise, when I approached Grandmamma’s arm-chair to kiss her hand, she withdrew it, and thrust it under her mantilla.

“Well, my dear,” she began after a long pause, during which she regarded me from head to foot with the kind of expression which makes one uncertain where to look or what to do, “I must say that you seem to value my love very highly, and afford me great consolation.”  Then she went on, with an emphasis on each word, “Monsieur St. Jerome, who, at my request, undertook your education,