'That's all I want,' Semyon Matveitch maintained; 'if there is zeal, I
myself will direct it.' In the midst of his numerous occupations--he had
to superintend the factory, the estate, the foundation of a
counting-house, the drawing up of counting-house regulations, the
creation of new offices and duties--Semyon Matveitch still had time to
attend to me.

I was summoned one evening to the drawing-room, and set to play the
piano. Semyon Matveitch cared for music even less than his brother; he
praised and thanked me, however, and next day I was invited to dine at
the master's table. After dinner Semyon Matveitch had rather a long
conversation with me, asked me questions, laughed at some of my replies,
though there was, I remember, nothing amusing in them, and stared at me
so strangely... I felt uncomfortable. I did not like his eyes, I did not
like their open expression, their clear glance.... It always seemed to
me that this very openness concealed something evil, that under that
clear brilliance it was dark within in his soul. 'You shall not be my
reader,' Semyon Matveitch announced to me at last, prinking and setting
himself to rights in a repulsive way. 'I am, thank God, not blind yet,
and can read myself; but coffee will taste better to me from your little
hands, and I shall listen to your playing with pleasure.' From that day
I always went over to the big house to dinner, and sometimes remained in
the drawing-room till evening. I too, like my stepfather, was in favour:
it was not a source of joy for me. Semyon Matveitch, I am bound to own,
showed me a certain respect, but in the man there was, I felt it,
something that repelled and alarmed me. And that 'something' showed
itself not in words, but in his eyes, in those wicked eyes, and in his
laugh. He never spoke to me of my father, of his brother, and it seemed
to me that he avoided the subject, not because he did not want to excite
ambitious ideas or pretensions in me, but from another cause, to which I