selves so clearly upon his memory as this new
and unusually interesting appearance of the ground.

Everything was enormous to him--the fences, the dogs and the people--but
that did not at all surprise or frighten him; that only made everything
particularly interesting; that transformed life into an uninterrupted
miracle. According to his measures, various objects seemed to him as
follows:

His father--ten yards tall.

His mother--three yards.

The neighbour's angry dog--thirty yards.

Their own dog--ten yards, like papa.

Their house of one story was very, very tall--a mile.

The distance between one side of the street and the other--two miles.

Their garden and the trees in their garden seemed immense, infinitely
tall.

The city--a million--just how much he did not know.

And everything else appeared to him in the same way. He knew many
people, large and small, but he knew and appreciated better the little
ones with whom he could speak of everything. The grown people behaved
so foolishly and asked such absurd, dull questions about things that
everybody knew, that it was necessary for him also to make believe that
he was foolish. He had to lisp and give nonsensical answers; and, of
course, he felt like running away from them as soon as possible.
But there were over him and around him and within him two entirely
extraordinary persons, at once big and small, wise and foolish, at once
his own and strangers--his father and mother.

They must have been very good people, otherwise they could not have been
his father and mother; at any rate, they were charming and unlike other
people. He could say with certainty that his father was very great,
terribly wise, that he possessed immense power, which made him a person
to be feared somewhat, and it was interesting to talk with him about
unusual things, placing his hand in father's large, strong, warm hand
for safety's sake.

Mamma was not so large, and sometimes she was even very small; she was
very kind hearted, she kissed tenderly; she understood very well how he
felt when he had a pain in his little stomach, and only with her could
he relieve his heart when he grew tired of life, of his games or when he
was the victim of some cruel injustice. And if it was unpleasant to cry
in father's presence, and even dangerous to be capricious, his tears
had an unusually pleasant taste in mother's presence and filled his soul
with a peculiar serene sadness, which he could find