with his tongue, as with his face and his hands. He shows how the
sun shines, how the horses run, how the terrible stove looks, and
how the cook drinks. . . .

In the evening he cannot get to sleep. The soldiers with the brooms,
the big cats, the horses, the bit of glass, the tray of oranges,
the bright buttons, all gathered together, weigh on his brain. He
tosses from side to side, babbles, and, at last, unable to endure
his excitement, begins crying.

"You are feverish," says mamma, putting her open hand on his forehead.
"What can have caused it?

"Stove!" wails Grisha. "Go away, stove!"

"He must have eaten too much . . ." mamma decides.

And Grisha, shattered by the impressions of the new life he has
just experienced, receives a spoonful of castor-oil from mamma.


OYSTERS

I NEED no great effort of memory to recall, in every detail, the
rainy autumn evening when I stood with my father in one of the more
frequented streets of Moscow, and felt that I was gradually being
overcome by a strange illness. I had no pain at all, but my legs
were giving way under me, the words stuck in my throat, my head
slipped weakly on one side . . . It seemed as though, in a moment,
I must fall down and lose consciousness.