chair for one. He had no mischievous tricks; he was never noisy; he
would sit by himself in a corner with a book, and with such sedateness
and propriety, never even leaning back in his chair. When a visitor came
in, Andryusha would get up, with a decorous smile and a flush; when the
visitor went away he would sit down again, pull out of his pocket a
brush and a looking-glass, and brush his hair. From his earliest years
he had shown a taste for drawing. Whenever he got hold of a piece of
paper, he would ask Agafya the housekeeper for a pair of scissors at
once, carefully cut a square piece out of the paper, trace a border
round it and set to work; he would draw an eye with an immense pupil, or
a Grecian nose, or a house with a chimney and smoke coming out of it in
the shape of a corkscrew, a dog, _en face_, looking rather like a
bench, or a tree with two pigeons on it, and would sign it: 'Drawn by
Andrei Byelovzorov, such a day in such a year, in the village of
Maliya-Briki.' He used to toil with special industry for a fortnight
before Tatyana Borissovna's birthday; he was the first to present his
congratulations and offer her a roll of paper tied up with a pink
ribbon. Tatyana Borissovna would kiss her nephew and undo the knot; the
roll was unfolded and presented to the inquisitive gaze of the
spectator, a round, boldly sketched temple in sepia, with columns and an
altar in the centre; on the altar lay a burning heart and a wreath,
while above, on a curling scroll, was inscribed in legible characters:
'To my aunt and benefactress, Tatyana Borissovna Bogdanov, from her
dutiful and loving nephew, as a token of his deepest affection.' Tatyana
Borissovna would kiss him again and give him a silver rouble. She did
not, though, feel any very warm affection for him; Andryusha's fawning
ways were not quite to her taste. Meanwhile, Andryusha was growing up;
Tatyana Borissovna began to be anxious about his future. An unexpected
incident solved the difficulty to her.