“This little one,” replied Papa, smiling; “the one with the tuft of hair on his top-knot.”

“Why need he bother about my tuft?” I thought to myself as I retired into a corner.  “Is there nothing else for him to talk about?”

I had strange ideas on manly beauty.  I considered Karl Ivanitch one of the handsomest men in the world, and myself so ugly that I had no need to deceive myself on that point.  Therefore any remark on the subject of my exterior offended me extremely.  I well remember how, one day after luncheon (I was then six years of age), the talk fell upon my personal appearance, and how Mamma tried to find good features in my face, and said that I had clever eyes and a charming smile; how, nevertheless, when Papa had examined me, and proved the contrary, she was obliged to confess that I was ugly; and how, when the meal was over and I went to pay her my respects, she said as she patted my cheek; “You know, Nicolinka, nobody will ever love you for your face alone, so you must try all the more to be a good and clever boy.”

Although these words of hers confirmed in me my conviction that I was not handsome, they also confirmed in me an ambition to be just such a boy as she had indicated.  Yet I had my moments of despair at my ugliness, for I thought that no human being with such a large nose, such thick lips, and such small grey eyes as mine could ever hope to attain happiness on this earth.  I used to ask God to perform a miracle by changing me into a beauty, and would have given all that I possessed, or ever hoped to possess, to have a handsome face.

XVIII —­ PRINCE IVAN IVANOVITCH

When the Princess had heard my verses and overwhelmed the writer of them with praise, Grandmamma softened to her a little.  She began to address her in French and to cease calling her “my dear.”  Likewise she invited her to return that evening with her children.  This invitation having been accepted, the Princess took her leave.  After that, so many other callers came to congratulate Grandmamma that the courtyard was crowded all day long with carriages.

“Good morning, my dear cousin,” was the greeting of one guest in particular as he entered the room and kissed Grandmamma’s hand, He was a man of seventy, with a stately figure clad in a military uniform and adorned with large epaulettes, an embroidered collar, and a white cross round the neck.  His face, with its quiet and open expression, as well as the simplicity and ease of his manners, greatly pleased me, for, in spite of the thin half-circle of hair which was all that was now left to him, and the want of teeth disclosed by the set of his upper lip, his face was a remarkably handsome one.