Page:Chernyshevsky.whatistobedone.djvu/74

54 when Viérotchka was sitting there, and this was the larger part of the day, she was not disturbed. Mikhaïl Ivanuitch was occasionally allowed to enter her room. He was as obedient to her as a child. She told him to read; he read with great energy, as though to get ready for an examination. He derived very little instruction from his reading, but still he got some good from it. She tried to help him shine in conversation. Conversations came easier to him than books; and he made some progress, very slow, very trifling, but all the same he progressed. He began to treat his mother with more respect than before; began to prefer keeping her under the bridle than on the hook.

Thus passed three or four months. There was a reconciliation, there was peace; but every day a storm threatened, and Viérotchka's heart was dying within her at the horrible anticipation,—if not to-day, then to-morrow Mikhaïl Ivanuitch or Marya Alekséyevna would demand of her the answer. They will not wait a whole century.

If I were to want to make an effective collision, I should give to this situation a crackling conclusion; but such did not occur. If I wanted to allure by uncertainty, I should not say now that nothing of the kind happened; but I am writing without any subterfuges, and I therefore will anticipate and say there will be no crackling collision; the situation will be untied without storms, without thunder or lightning.