Mamma was playing Field's second concerto. Field, it may be said, had
been her master. As I dozed, the music brought up before my imagination
a kind of luminosity, with transparent dream-shapes. Next she played the
"Sonate Pathetique" of Beethoven, and I at once felt heavy, depressed,
and apprehensive. Mamma often played those two pieces, and therefore I
well recollect the feelings they awakened in me. Those feelings were a
reminiscence--of what? Somehow I seemed to remember something which had
never been.

Opposite to me lay the study door, and presently I saw Jakoff enter it,
accompanied by several long-bearded men in kaftans. Then the door shut
again.

"Now they are going to begin some business or other," I thought. I
believed the affairs transacted in that study to be the most important
ones on earth. This opinion was confirmed by the fact that people only
approached the door of that room on tiptoe and speaking in whispers.
Presently Papa's resonant voice sounded within, and I also scented
cigar smoke--always a very attractive thing to me. Next, as I dozed, I
suddenly heard a creaking of boots that I knew, and, sure enough,
saw Karl Ivanitch go on tiptoe, and with a depressed, but resolute,
expression on his face and a written document in his hand, to the study
door and knock softly. It opened, and then shut again behind him.

"I hope nothing is going to happen," I mused. "Karl Ivanitch is
offended, and might be capable of anything--" and again I dozed off.

Nevertheless something DID happen. An hour later I was disturbed by
the same creaking of boots, and saw Karl come out, and disappear up