A pedlar went trotting across the road with a tray, and we laughed.  Some ragged cabmen, brandishing their reins and driving at full speed, overtook our sledge, and we laughed again.  Next, Philip’s whip got caught in the side of the vehicle, and the way in which he said, “Bother the thing!” as he drove to disentangle it almost killed us with mirth.  Mimi looked displeased, and said that only silly people laughed for no reason at all, but Lubotshka—­her face purple with suppressed merriment—­needed but to give me a sly glance, and we again burst out into such Homeric laughter, when our eyes met, that the tears rushed into them and we could not stop our paroxysms, although they nearly choked us.  Hardly, again, had we desisted a little when I looked at Lubotshka once more, and gave vent to one of the slang words which we then affected among ourselves—­words which always called forth hilarity; and in a moment we were laughing again.

Just as we reached home, I was opening my mouth to make a splendid grimace at Lubotshka when my eye fell upon a black coffin-cover which was leaning against the gate—­and my mouth remained fixed in its gaping position.

“Your Grandmamma is dead,” said St. Jerome as he met us.  His face was very pale.

Throughout the whole time that Grandmamma’s body was in the house I was oppressed with the fear of death, for the corpse served as a forcible and disagreeable reminder that I too must die some day—­a feeling which people often mistake for grief.  I had no sincere regret for Grandmamma, nor, I think, had any one else, since, although the house was full of sympathising callers, nobody seemed to mourn for her from their hearts except one mourner whose genuine grief made a great impression upon me, seeing that the mourner in question was—­Gasha!  She shut herself up in the garret, tore her hair and refused all consolation, saying that, now that her mistress was dead, she only wished to die herself.

I again assert that, in matters of feeling, it is the unexpected effects that constitute the most reliable signs of sincerity.

Though Grandmamma was no longer with us, reminiscences and gossip about her long went on in the house.  Such gossip referred mostly to her will, which she had made shortly before her death, and of which, as yet, no one knew the contents except her bosom friend, Prince Ivan Ivanovitch.  I could hear the servants talking excitedly together, and making innumerable conjectures as to the amount left and the probable beneficiaries:  nor can I deny that the idea that we ourselves were probably the latter greatly pleased me.

Six weeks later, Nicola—­who acted as regular news-agent to the house—­informed me that Grandmamma had left the whole of her fortune to Lubotshka, with, as her trustee until her majority, not Papa, but Prince Ivan Ivanovitch!

XXIV.  MYSELF

Only a few months remained before I was to matriculate for the University, yet I was making such good progress that I felt no apprehensions, and even took a pleasure in my studies.  I kept in good heart, and learnt my lessons fluently and intelligently.  The faculty I had selected was the mathematical one—­probably, to tell the truth, because the terms “tangent,” “differentials,” “integrals,” and so forth, pleased my fancy.