"Don't joke; I mean to have a serious talk with you. Do you know I
am dissatisfied with your younger son? Between ourselves" (and her
face assumed its melancholy expression), "he was mentioned at Her
Majesty's and you were pitied...."

The prince answered nothing, but she looked at him significantly,
awaiting a reply. He frowned.

"What would you have me do?" he said at last. "You know I did all
a father could for their education, and they have both turned out
fools. Hippolyte is at least a quiet fool, but Anatole is an active
one. That is the only difference between them." He said this smiling
in a way more natural and animated than usual, so that the wrinkles
round his mouth very clearly revealed something unexpectedly coarse
and unpleasant.

"And why are children born to such men as you? If you were not a
father there would be nothing I could reproach you with," said Anna
Pavlovna, looking up pensively.

"I am your faithful slave and to you alone I can confess that my
children are the bane of my life. It is the cross I have to bear. That
is how I explain it to myself. It can't be helped!"

He said no more, but expressed his resignation to cruel fate by a
gesture. Anna Pavlovna meditated.

"Have you never thought of marrying your prodigal son Anatole?"
she asked. "They say old maids have a mania for matchmaking, and