Pagina 652 de 3800

Anatole, having taken off his overcoat, sat with arms akimbo

before a table on a corner of which he smilingly and

absent-mindedly fixed his large and handsome eyes. He regarded

his whole life as a continual round of amusement which someone

for some reason had to provide for him. And he looked on this

visit to a churlish old man and a rich and ugly heiress in the

same way. All this might, he thought, turn out very well and

amusingly. "And why not marry her if she really has so much

money? That never does any harm," thought Anatole.

He shaved and scented himself with the care and elegance which

had become habitual to him and, his handsome head held high,

entered his father's room with the good-humored and victorious

air natural to him. Prince Vasili's two valets were busy dressing

him, and he looked round with much animation and cheerfully

nodded to his son as the latter entered, as if to say: "Yes,

that's how I want you to look."