"The soup is very good to-day," the governess ventures timidly.

"Oh, you think so?" says Zhilin, looking at her angrily from under
his eyelids. "Every one to his taste, of course. It must be confessed
our tastes are very different, Varvara Vassilyevna. You, for instance,
are satisfied with the behaviour of this boy" (Zhilin with a tragic
gesture points to his son Fedya); "you are delighted with him, while
I . . . I am disgusted. Yes!"

Fedya, a boy of seven with a pale, sickly face, leaves off eating
and drops his eyes. His face grows paler still.

"Yes, you are delighted, and I am disgusted. Which of us is right,
I cannot say, but I venture to think as his father, I know my own
son better than you do. Look how he is sitting! Is that the way
decently brought up children sit? Sit properly."

Fedya tilts his chin up, cranes his neck, and fancies that he is
holding himself better. Tears come into his eyes.

"Eat your dinner! Hold your spoon properly! You wait. I'll show
you, you horrid boy! Don't dare to whimper! Look straight at me!"

Fedya tries to look straight at him, but his face is quivering and
his eyes fill with tears.

"A-ah! . . . you cry? You are naughty and then you cry? Go and stand
in the corner, you beast!"

"But . . . let him have his dinner first," his wife intervenes.