it made on the child.

"Listen," he said, raising his eyes to the ceiling. "Once upon a
time, in a certain country, in a certain kingdom, there lived an
old, very old emperor with a long grey beard, and . . . and with
great grey moustaches like this. Well, he lived in a glass palace
which sparkled and glittered in the sun, like a great piece of clear
ice. The palace, my boy, stood in a huge garden, in which there
grew oranges, you know . . . bergamots, cherries . . . tulips,
roses, and lilies-of-the-valley were in flower in it, and birds of
different colours sang there. . . . Yes. . . . On the trees there
hung little glass bells, and, when the wind blew, they rang so
sweetly that one was never tired of hearing them. Glass gives a
softer, tenderer note than metals. . . . Well, what next? There
were fountains in the garden. . . . Do you remember you saw a
fountain at Auntie Sonya's summer villa? Well, there were fountains
just like that in the emperor's garden, only ever so much bigger,
and the jets of water reached to the top of the highest poplar."

Yevgeny Petrovitch thought a moment, and went on:

"The old emperor had an only son and heir of his kingdom--a boy
as little as you. He was a good boy. He was never naughty, he went
to bed early, he never touched anything on the table, and altogether
he was a sensible boy. He had only one fault, he used to
smoke. . . ."

Seryozha listened attentively, and looked into his father's eyes
without blinking. The prosecutor went on, thinking: "What next?"
He spun out a long rigmarole, and ended like this: