The countess’s silence had subdued and depressed her, but the letter, all that she read between the lines in it, so exasperated her, this malice was so revolting beside her passionate, legitimate tenderness for her son, that she turned against other people and left off blaming herself.

“This coldness⁠—this pretense of feeling!” she said to herself. “They must needs insult me and torture the child, and I am to submit to it! Not on any consideration! She is worse than I am. I don’t lie, anyway.” And she decided on the spot that next day, Seryozha’s birthday, she would go straight to her husband’s house, bribe or deceive the servants, but at any cost see her son and overturn the hideous deception with which they were encompassing the unhappy child.