Métivier, who came in the morning with his felicitations, considered it proper in his quality of doctor de forcer la consigne , 71 as he told Princess Márya, and went in to see the prince. It happened that on that morning of his name day the prince was in one of his worst moods. He had been going about the house all the morning finding fault with everyone and pretending not to understand what was said to him and not to be understood himself. Princess Márya well knew this mood of quiet absorbed querulousness, which generally culminated in a burst of rage, and she went about all that morning as though facing a cocked and loaded gun and awaited the inevitable explosion. Until the doctor’s arrival the morning had passed off safely. After admitting the doctor, Princess Márya sat down with a book in the drawing room near the door through which she could hear all that passed in the study.