the plates. He was almost too idle to speak, and when the visitors
addressed him he answered in a tone indicating excessive boredom or a
guilty conscience. Because he was quiet, never seriously drunk, and did
not smoke, his master had made him butler; he was also very zealous at
church.

[1] Tatiana Markovna was addressed by her grand-nieces and her
grand-nephew as Grandmother.




CHAPTER III


Boris came in on his aunt during the children's breakfast. Tatiana
Markovna clapped her hands and all but jumped from her chair; the plates
were nearly shaken off the table.

"Borushka, tiresome boy! You have not even written, but descend like a
thunderclap. How you frightened me!"

She took his head in her hands, looked for a full minute into his face,
and would have wept, but she glanced away at his mother's portrait, and
sighed.

"Well, well!" she seemed to say, but in fact said nothing, but smiled
and wiped away her tears with her handkerchief. "Your mother's boy," she
cried, "her very image! See how lovely she was, look, Vassilissa! Do you
remember? Isn't he like her?"