Her face brightened with her old smile. Her whole
being revived and freshened, as though she had awakened from a long
sleep. The veterinarian's wife and child arrived. She was a thin,
plain woman, with a crabbed expression. The boy Sasha, small for his
ten years of age, was a chubby child, with clear blue eyes and dimples
in his cheeks. He made for the kitten the instant he entered the yard,
and the place rang with his happy laughter.
"Is that your cat, auntie?" he asked Olenka. "When she has little
kitties, please give me one. Mamma is awfully afraid of mice."
Olenka chatted with him, gave him tea, and there was a sudden warmth
in her bosom and a soft gripping at her heart, as though the boy were
her own son.
In the evening, when he sat in the dining-room studying his lessons,
she looked at him tenderly and whispered to herself:
"My darling, my pretty. You are such a clever child, so good to look
at."
"An island is a tract of land entirely surrounded by water," he
recited.
"An island is a tract of land," she repeated--the first idea
asseverated with conviction after so many years of silence and mental
emptiness.
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