My father was immovable, and Latkin never more set foot in the house. It seemed as if fate had determined to fulfill my father's last evil wishes. Soon after the breach between them, which took place about two years before my story began, Latkin's wife died: it is true, however, that she had for a long time been ill. His second daughter, a child of three years, became deaf and dumb one day from fright: a swarm of bees lit on her head. Latkin himself had a stroke of paralysis and fell into the most extreme misery. How he managed to scrape along at all, what he lived on, it was hard to imagine. He dwelt in a tumbledown hovel but a short distance from our house. His eldest daughter, Raissa, lived with him and managed for him as well as she could. This very Raissa is the new person whom I must introduce into my story. XII. So long as her father was on friendly terms with mine we used to see her continually: she would sometimes spend whole days at our house, sewing or knitting with her swift, delicate fingers. She was a tall, somewhat slender girl, with thoughtful gray eyes in a pale oval face. She spoke little, but what she said was sensible, and she uttered it in a low, clear voice, without opening her mouth much and without showing her teeth: when she laughed--which was seldom--she showed them all suddenly, large and white as almonds. I also remember her walk, which was light and elastic, with a little spring in every step: it seemed to me always as if she were going up stairs, even when she was on level ground. She held herself erect, with her hands folded, and whatever she did, whatever she undertook--if she only threaded a needle or smoothed her dress--was well and gracefully done. You will hardly believe it, but there was something touching in her way of doing things. Her baptismal name was Raissa, but we called her "Little Black-Lip," for she had a little mole, like a berry-stain, on her upper lip, but this did not disfigure her; indeed, it had the contrary effect. She was just a year older than David. I had for her a feeling akin to reverence, but she had very little to do with me. Between her and David, on the other hand, there existed a friendship--a childish but warm if somewhat strange friendship. They suited one another well: sometimes for hours they would not exchange a word, but every one felt that they were enjoying themselves merely because they were together. I have really never met another girl like her. There was in her something questioning, yet decided--something honest, and sad, and dear. I never heard her say anything clever, and also nothing commonplace, and I have never seen anything more intelligent than her eyes. When the breach between her family and mine came I began to see her seldom. My father positively forbade my seeing the Latkins, and she never appeared at our house; but I used to meet her in the street, at church, and Little Black-Lip used to inspire me with the same