And had he not seen, that every time before the visit of the sweet-scented and bestarched Paul Edwardovich, some ninny with some embassy, with whom mamma, in imitation of the fashionable St. Petersburg promenades to the Strelka, used to ride to the Dnieper to contemplate the sun setting on the other side of the river, in the Chernigovskaya district—­had he not seen how mamma’s bosom went, and how her cheeks glowed under the powder; had he not detected at these moments many new and strange things; had he not heard her voice, an altogether unknown voice, like an actor’s; nervously breaking off, mercilessly malicious to those of the family and the servants, and suddenly soft, like velvet, like a green meadow under the sun, when Paul Edwardovich would arrive?  Ah, if we people who have been made wise by experience would know how much, and even too much, the urchins and little girls surrounding us know, of whom we usually say: 

“Well, why mind Volodya (or Petie, or Katie)? ...  Why, they are little.  They don’t understand anything! ...”

So also not in vain passed for Gladishev the history of his elder brother, who had just come out of a military school into one of the conspicuous grenadier regiments; and, being on leave until such time when it would be possible for him to spread his wings, lived in two separate rooms with his family.  At that time Niusha, a chambermaid, was in their service; at times they jestingly called her signorita Anita—­a seductive black-haired girl, who, if she were to change costumes, could in appearance be taken for a dramatic actress, or a princess of the royal blood, or a political worker.  Kolya’s mother manifestly countenanced the fact that Kolya’s brother, half in jest, half in earnest, was allured by this girl.  Of course, she had only the sole, holy, maternal calculation:  If it were destined, after all, for her Borenka to fall, then let him give his purity, his innocence, his first physical inclination, not to a prostitute, not to a street-walker, not to a seeker of adventures, but to a pure girl.  Of course, only a disinterested, unreasoning, truly-maternal feeling guided her.  Kolya at that time was living through the epoch of llanos, pampases, Apaches, track-finders, and a chief by the name of “Black Panther”; and, of course, attentively kept track of the romance of his brother, and made his own syllogisms; at times only too correct, at times fantastic.  After six months, from behind a door, he was the witness—­or more correctly the auditor—­of an outrageous scene.  The wife of the general, always so respectable and restrained, was yelling in her boudoir at signorita Anita, and cursing in the words of a cab-driver:  the signorita was in the fifth month of pregnancy.  If she had not cried, then, probably, they would simply have given her smart-money, and she would have gone away in peace; but she was in love with the young master, did not demand anything, and for that reason they drove her away with the aid of the police.