n's room, a strange sight met her eyes.

On the bed lay stretched Rosalia Karlovna fast asleep, and a couple
of yards from her was her husband curled up on the trunk sleeping
the sleep of the just and snoring loudly.

What she said to her husband, and how he looked when he woke, I
leave to others to describe. It is beyond my powers.

A WORK OF ART

SASHA SMIRNOV, the only son of his mother, holding under his arm,
something wrapped up in No. 223 of the _Financial News_, assumed a
sentimental expression, and went into Dr. Koshelkov's consulting-room.

"Ah, dear lad!" was how the doctor greeted him. "Well! how are we
feeling? What good news have you for me?"

Sasha blinked, laid his hand on his heart and said in an agitated
voice: "Mamma sends her greetings to you, Ivan Nikolaevitch, and
told me to thank you. . . . I am the only son of my mother and you
have saved my life . . . you have brought me through a dangerous
illness and . . . we do not know how to thank you."

"Nonsense, lad!" said the doctor, highly delighted. "I only did
what anyone else would have done in my place."

"I am the only son of my mother . . . we are poor people and cannot
of course repay you, and we are quite ashamed, doctor, although,
however, mamma and I . . . the only son of my mother, earnestly beg
you to accept in token of our gratitude . . . this object, which
. . . An object of great value, an antique bronze. . . . A rare work
of art."

"You shouldn't!" said the doctor, frowning. "What's this for!"

"No, please do not refuse," Sasha went on muttering as he unpacked
the parcel. "You will wound mamma and me by refusing. . . . It's a
fine thing . . . an antique bronze. . . . It was left us by my
deceased father and we have kept it as a precious souvenir. My
father used to buy antique bronzes and sell them to connoisseurs
. . . Mamma and I keep on the business now."

Sasha undid the object and put it solemnly on the table. It was a
not very tall candelabra of old bronze and artistic workmanship.
It consisted of a group: on the pedestal stood two female figures
in the costume of Eve and in attitudes for the description of which
I have neither the courage nor the fitting temperament. The figures
were smiling coquettishly and altogether looked as though, had it
not been for the necessity of supporting the candlestick, they would
have skipped off the pedestal and have indulged in an orgy such as
is improper for the reader even to imag