She now had her opinions, and at supper discussed with Sasha's parents
how difficult the studies had become for the children at the
gymnasium, but how, after all, a classical education was better than a
commercial course, because when you graduated from the gymnasium then
the road was open to you for any career at all. If you chose to, you
could become a doctor, or, if you wanted to, you could become an
engineer.
Sasha began to go to the gymnasium. His mother left on a visit to her
sister in Kharkov and never came back. The father was away every day
inspecting cattle, and sometimes was gone three whole days at a time,
so that Sasha, it seemed to Olenka, was utterly abandoned, was treated
as if he were quite superfluous, and must be dying of hunger. So she
transferred him into the wing along with herself and fixed up a little
room for him there.
Every morning Olenka would come into his room and find him sound
asleep with his hand tucked under his cheek, so quiet that he seemed
not to be breathing. What a shame to have to wake him, she thought.
"Sashenka," she said sorrowingly, "get up, darling. It's time to go to
the gymnasium.
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