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Chapter 19.
Stepan Arkadyevitch was about to go away when Korney came in
to announce:
“Sergey Alexyevitch!”
“Who’s Sergey Alexyevitch?” Stepan Arkadyevitch was beginning,
but he remembered immediately.
“Ah, Seryozha!” he said aloud. “Sergey Alexeitch! I thought it was
the director of a department. Anna asked me to see him too,” he
thought.
And he recalled the timid, piteous expression with which Anna
had said to him at parting: “Anyway, you will see him. Find out exactly
where he is, who is looking after him. And Stiva...if it were possible!
Could it be possible?” Stepan Arkadyevitch knew what was meant by
that “if it were possible,”—if it were possible to arrange the divorce so
as to let her have her son.... Stepan Arkadyevitch saw now that it was
no good to dream of that, but still he was glad to see his nephew.
Alexey Alexandrovitch reminded his brother-in-law that they never
spoke to the boy of his mother, and he begged him not to mention a
single word about her.
“He was very ill after that interview with his mother, which we had
not foreseen,” said Alexey Alexandrovitch. “Ideed, we feared for his
life. But with rational treatment, and sea-bathing in the summer, he
regained his strength, and now, by the doctor’s advice, I have let him go
to school. And certainly the companionship of school has had a good
effect on him, and he is perfectly well, and making good progress.”
“What a fine fellow he’s grown! He’s not Seryozha now, but quite
full-fledged Sergey Alexeitch!” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, smiling, as
he looked at the handsome, broad-shouldered lad in blue coat and
long trousers, who walked in alertly and confidently. The boy looked
healthy and good-humored. He bowed to his uncle as to a stranger,
but recognizing him, he blushed and turned hurriedly away from him,
as though offended and irritated at something. The boy went up to his
father and handed him a note of the marks he had gained in school.
“Well, that’s very fair,” said his father, “you can go.”
“He’s thinner and taller, and has grown out of being a child into a
boy; I like that,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch. “Do you remember me?”
The boy looked back quickly at his uncle.
“Yes, mon oncle,” he answered, glancing at his father, and again he
looked downcast.
His uncle called him to him, and took his hand.
“Well, and how are you getting on?” he said, wanting to talk to him,
and not knowing what to say.
The boy, blushing and making no answer, cautiously drew his hand
away. As soon as Stepan Arkadyevitch let go his hand, he glanced
doubtfully at his father, and like a bird set free, he darted out of the
room.
A year had passed since the last time Seryozha had seen his mother.
Since then he had heard nothing more of her. And in the course of that
year he had gone to school, and made friends among his schoolfellows.
The dreams and memories of his mother, which had made him ill after
seeing her, did not occupy his thoughts now. When they came back to