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.

“Three o’clock in the morning. The soft April night is looking in at my windows and caressingly winking at me with its stars. I can’t sleep, I am so happy!

“My whole being from head to heels is bursting with a strange, incomprehensible feeling. I can’t analyse it just now⁠—I haven’t the time, I’m too lazy, and there⁠—hang analysis! Why, is a man likely to interpret his sensations when he is flying head foremost from a belfry, or has just learned that he has won two hundred thousand? Is he in a state to do it?”