From being made useful beside the cradle, Nikolai was advanced in course
of time to mind the Holman's daughter Ursula, outside the cellar steps.
To move farther, only as far as the trees over on the other side of the
street, was a capital offence. The idea of what overstepping the bounds
meant, was impressed upon him with full force. How could Mrs. Holman be
sure otherwise that he did not take Silla right up to the basin round
the fountain, where all the naughty boys played with their ships, and
shouted and made a noise? His poor little body had received so many
black and blue marks every time he had fallen into temptation that at
last the limits stood instinctively before his frightened perception
like an invisible iron grating. A foot's breadth beyond was, in his
imagination, the blackest crime, an enormity which would draw down the
fiercest retribution upon him.

That Silla was an uncommon and remarkable being of a higher order, so to
speak, than himself, had been driven into him in so many ways ever since
she came into the world, that he looked upon the assertion as raised
above all doubt.

Notwithstanding everything that he had endured for her sake, or perhaps,
by a strange contradiction, just because of these sufferings, the
feeling that she was under his care was most highly developed. His
admiration of her was unqualified; he thought her more than remarkable
in her blue bow and an old red stuff rose in her hat, and he submitted
to a wilfulness which was quite as despotic as even Mrs. Holman's. When
he had sat long enough and let her fill his hair with dust, she would
order him to pull off her shoes and stockings. If he did it, he got a
beating; if he did not do it, she screamed, and then he got a beating
too.