A few days after Van’s arrival Uncle Dan came by the morning
	train from town for his habitual weekend stay with his family.
	Van happened to run into him as Uncle Dan was crossing
	the hall. The butler very charmingly (thought Van) signaled
67.05	to his master who the tall boy was by setting one hand three
	feet from the ground and then notching it up higher and higher
	—an altitudinal code that our young six-footer alone under-
	stood. Van saw the little red-haired gentleman glance with
	perplexity at old Bouteillan, who hastened to whisper Van’s
67.10	name.
	Mr. Daniel Veen had a curious manner, when advancing
	toward a guest, of dipping the fingers of his stiffly held right
	hand into his coat pocket and holding them there in a kind of
	purifying operation until the exact moment of the handshake
67.15	came.
	He informed Van that it was going to rain in a few minutes,
	"because it had started to rain at Ladore," and the rain, he said,
	"took about half-an-hour to reach Ardis." Van thought this was
	a quip and chuckled politely but Uncle Dan looked perplexed
67.20	again and, staring at Van with pale fish-eyes, inquired if he had

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	familiarized himself with the environs, how many languages he
	knew, and would he like to buy for a few kopecks a Red Cross
	lottery ticket?
	"No, thank you," said Van, "I have enough of my own
68.05	lotteries"—and his uncle stared again, but sort of sideways.
	Tea was served in the drawing room, and everybody was
	rather silent and subdued, and presently Uncle Dan retired to
	his study, pulling a folded newspaper out of an inner pocket,
	and no sooner had he left the room than a window flew open all
68.10	by itself, and a powerful shower started to drum upon the
	liriodendron and imperialis leaves outside, and the conversation
	became general and loud.
	Not long did the rain last—or rather stay: it continued on its
	presumable way to Raduga or Ladoga or Kaluga or Luga,
68.15	shedding an uncompleted rainbow over Ardis Hall.
	Uncle Dan in an overstuffed chair was trying to read, with
	the aid of one of the dwarf dictionaries for undemanding tourists
	which helped him to decipher foreign art catalogues, an article
	apparently devoted to oystering in a Dutch-language illustrated
68.20	paper somebody on the train had abandoned opposite him—
	when an abominable tumult started to spread from room to
	room through the whole house.
	The sportive dackel, one ear flapping, the other upturned
	and showing its gray-mottled pink, rapidly moving his comi-
68.25	cal legs, and skidding on the parquetry as he executed abrupt
	turns, was in the act of carrying away, to a suitable hid-
	ing place where to worry it, a sizable wad of blood-soaked
	cottonwool, snatched somewhere upstairs. Ada, Marina and two
	maids were pursuing the merry animal but he was impossible
68.30	to corner among all the baroque furniture as he tore through
	innumerable doorways. Suddenly the whole chase veered past
	Uncle Dan’s armchair and shot out again.
	"Good Lord!" he exclaimed, on catching sight of the gory
	trophy, "somebody must have chopped off a thumb!" Patting

[ 68 ]

	his thighs and his chair, he sought and retrieved—from under
	the footstool—the vestpocket wordbook and went back to his
	paper, but a second later had to look up "groote," which he
	had been groping for when disturbed.
69.05	The simplicity of its meaning annoyed him.
	Through an open french door Dack led his pursuers into the
	garden. There, on the third lawn, Ada overtook him with the
	flying plunge used in "American football," a kind of Rugby
	game cadets played at one time on the wet turfy banks of the
69.10	Goodson River. Simultaneously, Mlle Larivière rose from the
	bench where she had been paring Lucette’s fingernails, and
	pointing her scissors at Blanche who had rushed up with a paper
	bag, she accused the young slattern of a glaring precedent—
	namely of having once dropped a hairpin in Lucette’s cot, un
69.15	machin long comme ça qui faillit blesser l’enfant à la fesse.
	Marina, however, who had a Russian noblewoman’s morbid fear
	of "offending an inferior," declared the incident closed.
	"Nehoroshaya, nehoroshaya sobaka," crooned Ada with great
	aspiratory and sibilatory emphasis as she gathered into her arms
69.20	the now lootless, but completely unabashed, "bad dog."

[ 69 ]