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him, he studiously drove them away, regarding them as shameful and
girlish, below the dignity of a boy and a schoolboy. He knew that his
father and mother were separated by some quarrel, he knew that he
had to remain with his father, and he tried to get used to that idea.
He disliked seeing his uncle, so like his mother, for it called up
those memories of which he was ashamed. He disliked it all the more
as from some words he had caught as he waited at the study door, and
still more from the faces of his father and uncle, he guessed that they
must have been talking of his mother. And to avoid condemning the
father with whom he lived and on whom he was dependent, and,
above all, to avoid giving way to sentimentality, which he considered so
degrading, Seryozha tried not to look at his uncle who had come to
disturb his peace of mind, and not to think of what he recalled to him.
But when Stepan Arkadyevitch, going out after him, saw him on
the stairs, and calling to him, asked him how he spent his playtime at
school, Seryozha talked more freely to him away from his father’s pres-
ence.
“We have a railway now,” he said in answer to his uncle’s question.
“It’s like this, do you see: two sit on a bench— they’re the passengers;
and one stands up straight on the bench. And all are harnessed to it by
their arms or by their belts, and they run through all the rooms—the
doors are left open beforehand. Well, and it’s pretty hard work being
the conductor!”
“That’s the one that stands?” Stepan Arkadyevitch inquired, smil-
ing.
“Yes, you want pluck for it, and cleverness too, especially when
they stop all of a sudden, or someone falls down.”
“Yes, that must be a serious matter,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch,
watching with mournful interest the eager eyes, like his mother’s; not
childish now—no longer fully innocent. And though he had promised
Alexey Alexandrovitch not to speak of Anna, he could not restrain
himself.
“Do you remember your mother?” he asked suddenly.
“No, I don’t,” Seryozha said quickly. He blushed crimson, and his
face clouded over. And his uncle could get nothing more out of him.
His tutor found his pupil on the staircase half an hour later, and for a
long while he could not make out whether he was ill-tempered or
crying.
“What is it? I expect you hurt yourself when you fell down?” said
the tutor. “I told you it was a dangerous game. And we shall have to
speak to the director.”
“If I had hurt myself, nobody should have found it out, that’s cer-
tain.”
“Well, what is it, then?”
“Leave me alone! If I remember, or if I don’t remember?...what
business is it of his? Why should I remember? Leave me in peace!” he
said, addressing not his tutor, but the whole world.