Pashka, without noticing the doors, rushed into the smallpox ward, from there into the corridor, from the corridor he flew into a big room where monsters, with long hair and the faces of old women, were lying and sitting on the beds.  Running through the women’s wing he found himself again in the corridor, saw the banisters of the staircase he knew already, and ran downstairs.  There he recognised the waiting-room in which he had sat that morning, and began looking for the door into the open air.

The latch creaked, there was a whiff of cold wind, and Pashka, stumbling, ran out into the yard.  He had only one thought—­to run, to run!  He did not know the way, but felt convinced that if he ran he would be sure to find himself at home with his mother.  The sky was overcast, but there was a moon behind the clouds.  Pashka ran from the steps straight forward, went round the barn and stumbled into some thick bushes; after stopping for a minute and thinking, he dashed back again to the hospital, ran round it, and stopped again undecided; behind the hospital there were white crosses.

“Ma-a-mka!” he cried, and dashed back.

Running by the dark sinister buildings, he saw one lighted window.

The bright red patch looked dreadful in the darkness, but Pashka, frantic with terror, not knowing where to run, turned towards it.  Beside the window was a porch with steps, and a front door with a white board on it; Pashka ran up the steps, looked in at the window, and was at once possessed by intense overwhelming joy.  Through the window he saw the merry affable doctor sitting at the table reading a book.  Laughing with happiness, Pashka stretched out his hands to the person he knew and tried to call out, but some unseen force choked him and struck at his legs; he staggered and fell down on the steps unconscious.

When he came to himself it was daylight, and a voice he knew very well, that had promised him a fair, finches, and a fox, was saying beside him: 

“Well, you are an idiot, Pashka!  Aren’t you an idiot?  You ought to be beaten, but there’s no one to do it.”

GRISHA

Grisha, a chubby little boy, born two years and eight months ago, is walking on the boulevard with his nurse.  He is wearing a long, wadded pelisse, a scarf, a big cap with a fluffy pom-pom, and warm over-boots.  He feels hot and stifled, and now, too, the rollicking April sunshine is beating straight in his face, and making his eyelids tingle.

The whole of his clumsy, timidly and uncertainly stepping little figure expresses the utmost bewilderment.