“I don’t keep a shop,” I go on angrily.  “And it is a strange thing!  Why don’t you want to be independent?  Why have you such a distaste for independence?”

I say a great deal, but he still remains silent.  By degrees I calm down, and of course give in.  The doctor gets a subject from me for his theme not worth a halfpenny, writes under my supervision a dissertation of no use to any one, with dignity defends it in a dreary discussion, and receives a degree of no use to him.

The rings at the bell may follow one another endlessly, but I will confine my description here to four of them.  The bell rings for the fourth time, and I hear familiar footsteps, the rustle of a dress, a dear voice....

Eighteen years ago a colleague of mine, an oculist, died leaving a little daughter Katya, a child of seven, and sixty thousand roubles.  In his will he made me the child’s guardian.  Till she was ten years old Katya lived with us as one of the family, then she was sent to a boarding-school, and only spent the summer holidays with us.  I never had time to look after her education.  I only superintended it at leisure moments, and so I can say very little about her childhood.

The first thing I remember, and like so much in remembrance, is the extraordinary trustfulness with which she came into our house and let herself be treated by the doctors, a trustfulness which was always shining in her little face.  She would sit somewhere out of the way, with her face tied up, invariably watching something with attention; whether she watched me writing or turning over the pages of a book, or watched my wife bustling about, or the cook scrubbing a potato in the kitchen, or the dog playing, her eyes invariably expressed the same thought—­that is, “Everything that is done in this world is nice and sensible.”  She was curious, and very fond of talking to me.  Sometimes she would sit at the table opposite me, watching my movements and asking questions.  It interested her to know what I was reading, what I did at the University, whether I was not afraid of the dead bodies, what I did with my salary.

“Do the students fight at the University?” she would ask.

“They do, dear.”

“And do you make them go down on their knees?”

“Yes, I do.”

And she thought it funny that the students fought and I made them go down on their knees, and she laughed.  She was a gentle, patient, good child.  It happened not infrequently that I saw something taken away from her, saw her punished without reason, or her curiosity repressed; at such times a look of sadness was mixed with the invariable expression of trustfulness on her face—­that was all.  I did not know how to take her part; only when I saw her sad I had an inclination to draw her to me and to commiserate her like some old nurse:  “My poor little orphan one!”

I remember, too, that she was fond of fine clothes and of sprinkling herself with scent.  In that respect she was like me.  I, too, am fond of pretty clothes and nice scent.