my punishment was to be limited to confinement; whereas it was now evident that I was looked upon as not yet punished — that I was only being kept away from the others, as an evil-doer, until the due time of punishment. While I was still debating the question, the key of my prison turned, and St. Jerome entered with a severe, official air.

“Come down and see your Grandmamma,” he said without looking at me.

I should have liked first to have brushed my jacket, since it was covered with dust, but St. Jerome said that that was quite unnecessary, since I was in such a deplorable moral condition that my exterior was not worth considering.

As he led me through the salon, Katenka, Lubotshka, and Woloda looked at me with much the same