A little girl was born; Serafima Aleksandrovna gave herself up to her.
At the beginning she used to tell her husband, with rapture, of all
the joyous details of Lekchka's existence. But she soon found that he
listened to her without the slightest interest, and only from the
habit of politeness. Serafima Aleksandrovna drifted farther and
farther away from him. She loved her little girl with the ungratified
passion that other women, deceived in their husbands, show their
chance young lovers.
"_Mamochka_, let's play _priatki_" (hide and seek), cried Lelechka,
pronouncing the _r_ like the _l_, so that the word sounded "pliatki."
This charming inability to speak always made, Serafima Aleksandrovna
smile with tender rapture. Lelechka then ran away, stamping with her
plump little legs over the carpets, and hid herself behind the
curtains near her bed.
"_Tiu-tiu, mamochka!_" she cried out in her sweet, laughing voice, as
she looked out with a single roguish eye.
"Where is my baby girl?" the mother asked, as she looked for Lelechka
and made believe that she did not see her.
And Lelechka poured out her rippling laughter in her hiding place.
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