“That’s too much,” he replied, because the grown-up people spoke like that. “Wait a bit⁠—just step round the corner,” he added, and ran to the nurse.

Ólga and Groúsha admired the large globe mirror-ornament which stood in the garden, in which one could see tiny little houses, woods and gardens. This globe, as well as many other things, did not surprise them, because they expected to see the most wonderful things in this mysterious, and to them incomprehensible, gentlefolks’ world.

Vólya came to his nurse and asked her to give him thirty kopecks. Nurse said it was too much, but produced twenty from her box. Then, going round out of his way to avoid his father (who had only just got up after his weary night, and who sat smoking and reading his paper), he gave twenty kopecks to the girls, and emptied the strawberries onto a plate.

When they got home, Ólga untied with her teeth the knot in her handkerchief where she had tied the twenty kopecks, and gave them to her mother; who, after putting them away, went to the river to rinse her washing.