ce, and making his
eyelids tingle.

The whole of his clumsy, timidly and uncertainly stepping little
figure expresses the utmost bewilderment.

Hitherto Grisha has known only a rectangular world, where in one
corner stands his bed, in the other nurse's trunk, in the third a
chair, while in the fourth there is a little lamp burning. If one
looks under the bed, one sees a doll with a broken arm and a drum;
and behind nurse's trunk, there are a great many things of all
sorts: cotton reels, boxes without lids, and a broken Jack-a-dandy.
In that world, besides nurse and Grisha, there are often mamma and
the cat. Mamma is like a doll, and puss is like papa's fur-coat,
only the coat hasn't got eyes and a tail. From the world which is
called the nursery a door leads to a great expanse where they have
dinner and tea. There stands Grisha's chair on high legs, and on
the wall hangs a clock which exists to swing its pendulum and chime.
From the dining-room, one can go into a room where there are red
arm-chairs. Here, there is a dark patch on the carpet, concerning
which fingers are still shaken at Grisha. Beyond that room is still
another, to which one is not admitted, and where one sees glimpses
of papa--an extremely enigmatical person! Nurse and mamma are
comprehensible: they dress Grisha, feed him, and put him to bed,
but what papa exists for is unknown. There is another enigmatical
person, auntie, who presented Grisha with a drum. She appears and
disappears. Where does she disappear to? Grisha has more than once
looked under the bed, behind the trunk, and under the sofa, but she
was not there.

In this new world, where the sun hurts one's eyes, there are so
many papas and mammas and aunties, that there is no knowing to whom
to run. But what is stranger and more absurd than anything is the
horses. Grisha gazes at their moving legs, and can make nothing of
it. He looks at his nurse for her to solve the mystery, but she
does not speak.

All at once he hears a fearful tramping. . . . A crowd of soldiers,
with red faces and bath brooms under their arms, move in step along
the boulevard straight upon him. Grisha turns cold all over with
terror, and looks inquiringly at nurse to know whether it is
dangerous. But nurse neither weeps nor runs away, so there is no
danger. Grisha looks after the soldiers, and begins to move his
feet in step with them himself.

Two big cats with long faces run after each other across the
boulevard