out his being expelled. On the contrary,
it was a good thing--a very good thing, in fact. Next day he would
be as free as a bird; he would put on ordinary clothes instead of
his school uniform, would smoke openly, come out here, and make
love to Nyuta when he liked; and he would not be a schoolboy but
"a young man." And as for the rest of it, what is called a career,
a future, that was clear; Volodya would go into the army or the
telegraph service, or he would go into a chemist's shop and work
his way up till he was a dispenser. . . . There were lots of callings.
An hour or two passed, and he was still sitting and thinking. . . .

Towards three o'clock, when it was beginning to get light, the door
creaked cautiously and his _maman_ came into the room.

"Aren't you asleep?" she asked, yawning. "Go to sleep; I have only
come in for a minute. . . . I am only fetching the drops. . . ."

"What for?"

"Poor Lili has got spasms again. Go to sleep, my child, your
examination's to-morrow. . . ."

She took a bottle of something out of the cupboard, went to the
window, read the label, and went away.

"Marya Leontyevna, those are not the drops!" Volodya heard a woman's
voice, a minute later. "That's convallaria, and Lili wants morphine.
Is your son asleep? Ask him to look for it. . . ."

It was Nyuta's voice. Volodya turned cold. He hurriedly put on his
trousers, flung his coat over his shoulders, and went to the door.

"Do you understand? Morphine," Nyuta explained in a whisper. "There
must be a label in Latin. Wake Volodya; he will find it."

_Maman_ opened the door and Volodya caught sight of Nyuta. She was
wearing the same loose wrapper in which she had gone to bathe. Her
hair hung loose and disordered on her shoulders, her face looked
sleepy and dark in the half-light. . . .

"Why, Volodya is not asleep," she said. "Volodya, look in the
cupboard for the morphine, there's a dear! What a nuisance Lili is!
She has always something the matter."

_Maman_ muttered something, yawned, and went away.

"Look for it," said Nyuta. "Why are you standing still?"

Volodya went to the cupboard, knelt down, and began looking through
the bottles and boxes of medicine. His hands were trembling, and
he had a feeling in his chest and stomach as though cold waves were
running all over his inside. He felt suffocated and giddy from the
smell of ether, carbolic acid, and various drugs, which he quite
unnecessarily snatched up with his