"Here is your papa!" said Vassily Lukitch, rousing him.

Seryozha jumped up and went up to his father, and kissing his
hand, looked at him intently, trying to discover signs of his joy
at receiving the Alexander Nevsky.

"Did you have a nice walk?" said Alexey Alexandrovitch, sitting
down in his easy chair, pulling the volume of the Old Testament
to him and opening it. Although Alexey Alexandrovitch had more
than once told Seryozha that every Christian ought to know
Scripture history thoroughly, he often referred to the Bible
himself during the lesson, and Seryozha observed this.

"Yes, it was very nice indeed, papa," said Seryozha, sitting
sideways on his chair and rocking it, which was forbidden. "I
saw Nadinka" (Nadinka was a niece of Lidia Ivanovna's who was
being brought up in her house). "She told me you'd been given a
new star. Are you glad, papa?"

"First of all, don't rock your chair, please," said Alexey
Alexandrovitch. "And secondly, it's not the reward that's
precious, but the work itself. And I could have wished you
understood that. If you now are going to work, to study in order
to win a reward, then the work will seem hard to you; but when
you work" (Alexey Alexandrovitch, as he spoke, thought of how he
had been sustained by a sense of duty through the wearisome labor
of the morning, consisting of signing one hundred and eighty
papers), "loving your work, you will find your reward in it."