interviews with various persons, writing for whole nights,
disappearing for whole days; he had informed his landlord that he was
going away shortly, and had presented him already with his scanty
furniture. Elena too on her side was getting ready for departure. One
wet evening she was sitting in her room, and listening with
involuntary depression to the sighing of the wind, while she hemmed
handkerchiefs. Her maid came in and told her that her father was in
her mother's room and sent for her there. 'Your mamma is crying,' she
whispered after the retreating Elena, 'and your papa is angry.'

Elena gave a slight shrug and went into Anna Vassflyevna's room.
Nikolai Artemyevitch's kind-hearted spouse was half lying on a
reclining chair, sniffing a handkerchief steeped in _eau de Cologne_;
he himself was standing at the hearth, every button buttoned up, in a
high, hard cravat, with a stiffly starched collar; his deportment had
a vague suggestion of some parliamentary orator. With an orator's wave
of the arm he motioned his daughter to a chair, and when she, not
understanding his gesture, looked inquiringly at him, he brought out
with dignity, without turning his head: 'I beg you to be seated.'
Nikolai Artemyevitch always used the formal plural in addressing his
wife, but only on extraordinary occasions in addressing his daughter.

Elena sat down.

Anna Vassilyevna blew her nose tearfully. Nikolai Artemyevitch thrust
his fingers between his coat-buttons.

'I sent for you, Elena Nikolaevna,' he began after a protracted
silence, 'in order to have an explanation with you, or rather in order
to ask you for an explanation. I am displeased with you--or no--that