were carried about all over the earth in mailcarts with drunken
drivers and ringing bells. Vanka ran to the nearest post-box, and
thrust the precious letter in the slit. . . .

An hour later, lulled by sweet hopes, he was sound asleep. . . .
He dreamed of the stove. On the stove was sitting his grandfather,
swinging his bare legs, and reading the letter to the cooks. . . .

By the stove was Eel, wagging his tail.

AN INCIDENT

MORNING. Brilliant sunshine is piercing through the frozen lacework
on the window-panes into the nursery. Vanya, a boy of six, with a
cropped head and a nose like a button, and his sister Nina, a short,
chubby, curly-headed girl of four, wake up and look crossly at each
other through the bars of their cots.

"Oo-oo-oo! naughty children!" grumbles their nurse. "Good people
have had their breakfast already, while you can't get your eyes
open."

The sunbeams frolic over the rugs, the walls, and nurse's skirts,
and seem inviting the children to join in their play, but they take
no notice. They have woken up in a bad humour. Nina pouts, makes a
grimace, and begins to whine:

"Brea-eakfast, nurse, breakfast!"

Vanya knits his brows and ponders what to pitch upon to howl over.
He has already begun screwing up his eyes and opening his mouth,
but at that instant the voice of mamma reaches them from the
drawing-room, saying: "Don't forget to give the cat her milk, she
has a family now!"

The children's puckered countenances grow smooth again as they look
at each other in astonishment. Then both at once begin shouting,
jump out of their cots, and filling the air with piercing shrieks,
run barefoot, in their nightgowns, to the kitchen.

"The cat has puppies!" they cry. "The cat has got puppies!"

Under the bench in the kitchen there stands a small box, the one
in which Stepan brings coal when he lights the fire. The cat is
peeping out of the box. There is an expression of extreme exhaustion
on her grey face; her green eyes, with their narrow black pupils,
have a languid, sentimental look. From her face it is clear that
the only thing lacking to complete her happiness is the presence
in the box of "him," the father of her children, to whom she had
abandoned herself so recklessly! She wants to mew, and opens her
mouth wide, but nothing but a hiss comes from her throat; the
squealing of the kittens is audible.

The children squat on their heels before the box, and, motionless,
holding their b