My Dream

"As a daughter she no longer exists for me. Can't you understand? She
simply doesn't exist. Still, I cannot possibly leave her to the charity
of strangers. I will arrange things so that she can live as she pleases,
but I do not wish to hear of her. Who would ever have thought . . . the
horror of it, the horror of it."

He shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, and raised his eyes. These
words were spoken by Prince Michael Ivanovich to his brother Peter, who
was governor of a province in Central Russia. Prince Peter was a man of
fifty, Michael's junior by ten years.

On discovering that his daughter, who had left his house a year before,
had settled here with her child, the elder brother had come from St.
Petersburg to the provincial town, where the above conversation took
place.

Prince Michael Ivanovich was a tall, handsome, white-haired, fresh
coloured man, proud and attractive in appearance and bearing. His family
consisted of a vulgar, irritable wife, who wrangled with him continually
over every petty detail, a son, a ne'er-do-well, spendthrift and
roue--yet a "gentleman," according to his father's code, two daughters,
of whom the elder had married well, and was living in St. Petersburg;
and the younger, Lisa--his favourite, who had disappeared from home a
year before. Only a short while ago he had found her with her child in
this provincial town.

Prince Peter wanted to ask his brother how, and under what
circumstances, Lisa had left home, and who could possibly be the father
of her child. But he could not make up his mind to inquire.

That very morning, when his wife had attempted to condole with her
brother-in-law, Prince Peter had observed a look of pain on his
brother's face. The look had at once been masked by an expression of
unapproachable pride, and he had begun to question her about their flat,
and the price she paid. At luncheon, before the family and guests, he
had been witty and sarcastic as usual. Towards every one, excepting the
children, whom he treated with almost reverent tenderness, he adopted an
attitude of distant hauteur. And yet it was so natural to him that every
one somehow acknowledged his right to be haughty.

In the evening his brother arranged a game of whist. When he retired to
the room which had been made ready for him, and was just beginning to
take out his artificial teeth, some one tapped lightly on the door with
two fingers.

"Who is that?"

"C'est moi, Michael."

Prince Michael Ivanovich recognised the voice of his sister-in-law,
frowned, replaced his teeth, and said to himself, "What does she want?"
Aloud he said, "Entrez."

His sister-in-law was a