“And are the hours the same? And the walks in the avenues? And the lathe?” asked Prince Andréy with a scarcely perceptible smile which showed that, in spite of all his love and respect for his father, he was aware of his weaknesses.

“The hours are the same, and the lathe, and also the mathematics and my geometry lessons,” said Princess Márya gleefully, as if her lessons in geometry were among the greatest delights of her life.

When the twenty minutes had elapsed and the time had come for the old prince to get up, Tíkhon came to call the young prince to his father. The old man made a departure from his usual routine in honor of his son’s arrival: he gave orders to admit him to his apartments while he dressed for dinner. The old prince always dressed in old-fashioned style, wearing an antique coat and powdered hair; and when Prince Andréy entered his father’s dressing room (not with the contemptuous look and manner he wore in drawing rooms, but with the animated face with which he talked to Pierre), the old man was sitting on a large leather-covered chair, wrapped in a powdering mantle, entrusting his head to Tíkhon.