In the same drawing-room on the sofa lay Olga Vassilievna’s son, Alyosha, a boy about eight years old, well built, well looked after, dressed up like a picture in a velvet jacket and long black stockings. He lay on a satin pillow, and apparently imitating an acrobat whom he had lately seen in the circus, lifted up first one leg then the other. When his elegant legs began to be tired, he moved his hands, or he jumped up impetuously and then went on all fours, trying to stand with his legs in the air. All this he did with a most serious face, breathing heavily, as if he himself found no happiness in God’s gift of such a restless body. “Ah, how do you do, my friend?” said Byelyaev. “Is it you? I didn’t notice you. Is your mother well?” At the moment Alyosha had just taken hold of the toe of his left foot in his right hand and got into a most awkward pose. He turned head over heels, jumped up, and glanced from under the big, fluffy lampshade at Byelyaev. “How can I put it?” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “As a matter of plain fact mother is never well. You see she’s a woman, and women, Nicolai Ilyich, have always some pain or another.” For something to do, Byelyaev began to examine Alyosha’s face. All the time he had been acquainted with Olga Ivanovna he had never once turned his attention to the boy and had completely ignored his existence. A boy is stuck in front of your eyes, but what is he doing here, what is his _rôle_?--you don’t want to give a single thought to the question. In the evening dusk Alyosha’s face with a pale forehead and steady black eyes unexpectedly reminded Byelyaev of Olga Vassilievna as she was in the first pages of the romance. He had the desire to be affectionate to the boy. “Come here, whipper-snapper,” he said. “Come and let me have a good look at you, quite close.” The boy jumped off the sofa and ran to Byelyaev. “Well?” Nicolai Ilyich began, putting his hand on the thin shoulders. “And how are things with you?” “How shall I put it?... They used to be much better before.” “How?” “Quite simple. Before, Sonya and I only had to do music and reading, and now we’re given French verses to learn. You’ve had your hair cut lately?” “Yes, just lately.” “That’s why I noticed it. Your beard’s shorter. May I touch it ... doesn’t it hurt?” “No, not a bit.” “Why is it that it hurts if you pull one hair, and when you pull a whole lot, it doesn’t hurt a bit? Ah, ah! You know it’s a pity you don’t have side-whiskers. You should shave here, and at the sides ... and leave the hair just here.” The boy pressed close to Byelyaev and began to play with his watch-chain. “When I go to the gymnasium,” he said, “Mother is going to buy me a watch. I’ll ask her to buy me a chain just like this. What a fine locket! Father has one just the same, but yours has stripes, here, and his has got letters.... Inside it’s mother’s picture. Father has another chain now, not in links, but like a ribbon....”