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64 "Viérotchka, will you play something on the piano for Mikhaïl Ivanuitch and I," said Marya Alekséyevna, when Viérotchka had set down her second cup.

"Certainly."

"And if you would sing something," adds Mikhaïl Ivanuitch, in a flattering tone.

"Certainly."

"This 'certainly' sounded as though she had said, 'I am ready to do anything to get rid of you, thinks the tutor. And now he had been sitting down with them fully five minutes; and though he had not been looking at her, yet he knows that she has not looked once at the bridegroom, except when she answered him just now. And even now she looks at him as though she were looking at her father and mother,—coolly, and without the least trace of affection. "There must be something quite different from what Feódor told me. However, more than anything else she must be in reality a proud, calculating girl, who wants to enter the upper ten in order to rule and shine. It is disagreeable to her that she cannot find a better bridegroom for that purpose. But, despising the bridegroom, she yet accepts his hand because there is no other hand to lead her where she wants to go. Well, after all, this is rather interesting."

"Feódor, hurry up and finish your tea," remarked the mother.

"Don't hurry him, Marya Alekséyevna; I want to listen, if Viéra Pavlovna will allow me."

Viérotchka picked up the first music that came to hand, without looking at what it was, opened it at haphazard, and began to play mechanically; no matter, only so as to get done with it the sooner. But the piece happened to be of a good order; it was from an excellent opera, and soon the girl's playing grew animated. After she was done she started to get up.

"But you promised to sing, Viéra Pavlovna; if I were there, I would ask you to sing something from Rigoletto." (This winter "La donna é mobile" was the fashionable aria.)

"If you like."

Viérotchka sang "La donna é mobile"; then she got up and went to her room.

"No, she is not a heartless, cold girl without any soul; this is interesting."