"Tell auntie that she can send to the gardener for flowers. These
are mine. I don't want them to be touched. Tell her that I don't
like to upset my arrangements. Can you repeat what I said?"

"Yes, I can," the boy whispered.

"Well, repeat it then."

"I will say . . . I will say . . . that you don't want."

Valentina Mihailovna laughed, and her laugh, too, was soft.

"I see that one can't give you messages as yet. But never mind,
tell her anything you like."

The boy hastily kissed his mother's hand, adorned with rings, and
rushed out of the room.

Valentina Mihailovna looked after him, sighed, walked up to a
golden wire cage, on one side of which a green parrot was
carefully holding on with its beak and claws. She teased it a
little with the tip of her finger, then dropped on to a narrow
couch, and picking up a number of the "Revue des Deux Mondes" from
a round carved table, began turning over its pages.

A respectful cough made her look round. A handsome servant in
livery and a white cravat was standing by the door.

"What do you want, Agafon?" she asked in the same soft voice.