ltzer water, and in the fumes from the samovar. . . .
It is a very noxious gas. Near Naples there is the so-called Cave
of Dogs, which contains carbonic acid gas; a dog dropped into it
is suffocated and dies.'

"This luckless Cave of Dogs near Naples is a chemical marvel beyond
which no governess ventures to go. Zinotchka always hotly maintained
the usefulness of natural science, but I doubt if she knew any
chemistry beyond this Cave.

"Well, she told me to repeat it. I repeated it. She asked me what
was meant by the horizon. I answered. And meantime, while we were
ruminating over the horizon and the Cave, in the yard below, my
father was just getting ready to go shooting. The dogs yapped, the
trace horses shifted from one leg to another impatiently and coquetted
with the coachman, the footman packed the waggonette with parcels
and all sorts of things. Beside the waggonette stood a brake in
which my mother and sisters were sitting to drive to a name-day
party at the Ivanetskys'. No one was left in the house but Zinotchka,
me, and my eldest brother, a student, who had toothache. You can
imagine my envy and my boredom.

"'Well, what do we breathe in?' asked Zinotchka, looking at the
window.

"'Oxygen. . .'

"'Yes. And the horizon is the name given to the place where it
seems to us as though the earth meets the sky.'

"Then the waggonette drove off, and after it the brake. . . . I saw
Zinotchka take a note out of her pocket, crumple it up convulsively
and press it to her temple, then she flushed crimson and looked at
her watch.

"'So, remember,' she said, 'that near Naples is the so-called Cave
of Dogs. . . .' She glanced at her watch again and went on: 'where
the sky seems to us to meet the earth. . . .'

"The poor girl in violent agitation walked about the room, and once
more glanced at her watch. There was another half-hour before the
end of our lesson.

"'Now arithmetic,' she said, breathing hard and turning over the
pages of the sum-book with a trembling hand. 'Come, you work out
problem 325 and I . . . will be back directly.'

"She went out. I heard her scurry down the stairs, and then I saw
her dart across the yard in her blue dress and vanish through the
garden gate. The rapidity of her movements, the flush on her cheeks
and her excitement, aroused my curiosity. Where had she run, and
what for? Being intelligent beyond my years I soon put two and two
together, and understood it all: she had run into