how warmly they welcomed her.

"Lili Shumihin is a relation of mine, you know," she said. "Her
late husband, General Shumihin, was a cousin of my husband. And she
was a Baroness Kolb by birth. . . ."

"_Maman_, that's false!" said Volodya irritably. "Why tell lies?"

He knew perfectly well that what his mother said was true; in what
she was saying about General Shumihin and about Baroness Kolb there
was not a word of lying, but nevertheless he felt that she was
lying. There was a suggestion of falsehood in her manner of speaking,
in the expression of her face, in her eyes, in everything.

"You are lying," repeated Volodya; and he brought his fist down on
the table with such force that all the crockery shook and _maman_'s
tea was spilt over. "Why do you talk about generals and baronesses?
It's all lies!"

The music teacher was disconcerted, and coughed into her handkerchief,
affecting to sneeze, and _maman_ began to cry.

"Where can I go?" thought Volodya.

He had been in the street already; he was ashamed to go to his
schoolfellows. Again, quite incongruously, he remembered the two
little English girls. . . . He paced up and down the "general room,"
and went into Avgustin Mihalitch's room. Here there was a strong
smell of ethereal oils and glycerine soap. On the table, in the
window, and even on the chairs, there were a number of bottles,