feather bed was just visible behind a screen. A small dog began to
bark.

"Ah, is it you, cousin?"

She rose and smoothed her hair, which was as usual so extremely
smooth that it seemed to be made of one piece with her head and
covered with varnish.

"Has anything happened?" she asked. "I am so terrified."

"No, there is no change. I only came to have a talk about
business, Catiche,"* muttered the prince, seating himself wearily on
the chair she had just vacated. "You have made the place warm, I
must say," he remarked. "Well, sit down: let's have a talk."


*Catherine.


"I thought perhaps something had happened," she said with her
unchanging stonily severe expression; and, sitting down opposite the
prince, she prepared to listen.

"I wished to get a nap, mon cousin, but I can't."

"Well, my dear?" said Prince Vasili, taking her hand and bending
it downwards as was his habit.

It was plain that this "well?" referred to much that they both