So Katia began examining and choosing the things in his glass case. In a week's time she already knew all the things in his show-case by heart; she knew his name, how old he was, that he had a cousin in Petersburg in a Caucasian wine-shop, and that he himself would also come to Petersburg; she also heard all about Tiflis and Kislovodsk, heard that it was a great deal pleasanter in the park in the evening than in the daytime, and that it was so dark, so very dark! Katia learnt all this, but as yet she did not choose anything out of his glass case, but postponed doing so until she got to Kislovodsk.
Meanwhile Vava, who had aroused such black suspicions in mamma's mind, sat quietly at the gymnasium with her friend the governess, and, unable to contain herself any longer, unfolded to her her project of a home for destitute children. The governess sympathised with her idea, but did not quite believe in the possibility of its realisation, and, shaking her head, smiled incredulously.
"It's all very nice," she said, when Vava had finished, "but it will never come to anything. You will marry and bring up your own children, which will be a great deal better."
"In what way?"
"It will be more natural. It's impossible to love strange children like your own."
"But they won't be strange children, because they will be mine almost from the day of their birth."
"For all that, it's not the same. Of course I can't judge from my own experience; but every one says so, and I think it must be so myself. A strange child can never be the same as your own. I know it wouldn't be to me."
"But I could love a strange child like my own.... How not to love them? One pities them so, poor little forsaken, innocent things; and if you love out of pity, you love better and stronger."
"No—anyhow there is something unnatural about it. I should understand if you were unhappy, or had been disappointed in your own personal happiness, then it would be all very well; but why imagine all this when you have still the possibility of being happy?"
"Yes, but then I can only be happy in that way."