This was a very unexpected discovery, but Valia received it with unshakable indifference; auntie, well, let it be auntie--was it not just the same? A word did not, as yet, have the same meaning for him as it would for a grown person. But his former mother did not understand it, and began to explain why it had so happened that she had been a mother and had become an aunt. Once, very long ago, when Valia was very, very little-- “How little? So?” Valia raised his hand about a quarter of a yard from the table. “Like Kiska?” Valia exclaimed, joyfully surprised, with mouth half opened and brow lifted. He spoke of his white kitten that had been presented to him. “Yes.” Valia broke into a happy laugh, but immediately resumed his usual earnestness, and with the condescension of a grown person recalling the mistakes of his youth, he remarked: “How funny I must have been!” When he was so very little and funny, like Kiska, he had been brought by that woman and given away forever, also like Kiska. And now, when he had become so big and clever, the woman wanted him. “Do you wish to go to her?” asked his former mother and reddened with joy when Valia resolutely and sternly said: “No, she does not please me!” and once more took up his book. Valia considered the affair closed, but he was mistaken. This strange woman, with a face as devoid of life as if all the blood had been drained out of it, who had appeared from no one knew where, and vanished without leaving a trace, seemed to have set the whole house in turmoil and filled it with a dull alarm. Mama-auntie often cried and repeatedly asked Valia if he wished to leave her; uncle-papa grumbled, patted his bald pate so that the sparse, gray hair on it stood up, and when auntie-mama was absent from the room he also asked Valia if he would like to go to that woman. Once, in the evening, when Valia was already in his little bed but was not yet sleeping, he heard his uncle and auntie speaking of him and the woman. The uncle spoke in an angry basso at which the crystal pendants of the chandelier gently trembled and sparkled with bluish and reddish lights. “You speak nonsense, Nastasia Philippovna. We have no right to give the child away.” “She loves him, Grisha.” “And we! Do we not love him? You are arguing very strangely, Nastasia Philippovna. It seems as if you would be glad to get rid of the child--” “Are you not ashamed of yourself?” “Well, well, how quick you are to take offense. Just consider this matter cold-bloodedly and reasonably. Some frivolous thing or other gives birth to children, light-heartedly disposes of them by placing them on your threshold, and afterward says: ‘Kindly give me my child, because, on account of my lover having abandoned me, I feel lonesome. For theatres and concerts I have no money, so give me the child to serve as a toy to play with.’ No, madam, be easy, we shall see who wins in this case!” “You are unjust to her, Grisha. You know well how ill and lonely she is--”