“Do you know, I gave her the most delicate instructions, so to speak, for inviting that lady and her daughter, you understand of whom I am speaking? It needed the utmost delicacy, the greatest nicety, but she has managed things so that that fool, that conceited baggage, that provincial nonentity, simply because she is the widow of a major, and has come to try and get a pension and to fray out her skirts in the government offices, because at fifty she paints her face (everybody knows it)⁠ ⁠… a creature like that did not think fit to come, and has not even answered the invitation, which the most ordinary good manners required! I can’t understand why Pyotr Petrovitch has not come? But where’s Sonia? Where has she gone? Ah, there she is at last! what is it, Sonia, where have you been? It’s odd that even at your father’s funeral you should be so unpunctual. Rodion Romanovitch, make room for her beside you. That’s your place, Sonia⁠ ⁠… take what you like. Have some of the cold entrée with jelly, that’s the best. They’ll bring the pancakes directly. Have they given the children some? Polenka, have you got everything? ( Cough-cough-cough. ) That’s all right. Be a good girl, Lida, and, Kolya, don’t fidget with your feet; sit like a little gentleman. What are you saying, Sonia?”