something harassing, or was suffering from toothache, and the
monotonous scales gave the stillness of the evening a drowsiness
that disposed to lazy reveries. In the nursery, two rooms away, the
governess and Seryozha were talking.

"Pa-pa has come!" carolled the child. "Papa has co-ome. Pa! Pa!
Pa!"

"_Votre père vous appelle, allez vite!_" cried the governess, shrill
as a frightened bird. "I am speaking to you!"

"What am I to say to him, though?" Yevgeny Petrovitch wondered.

But before he had time to think of anything whatever his son Seryozha,
a boy of seven, walked into the study.

He was a child whose sex could only have been guessed from his
dress: weakly, white-faced, and fragile. He was limp like a hot-house
plant, and everything about him seemed extraordinarily soft and
tender: his movements, his curly hair, the look in his eyes, his
velvet jacket.

"Good evening, papa!" he said, in a soft voice, clambering on to
his father's knee and giving him a rapid kiss on his neck. "Did you
send for me?"

"Excuse me, Sergey Yevgenitch," answered the prosecutor, removing
him from his knee. "Before kissing we must have a talk, and a serious
talk . . . I am angry with you, and don't love you any more. I tell
you, my boy, I don't love you, and you are no son of mine. . . ."