Page:The Kiss and Other Stories by Anton Tchekhoff, 1908.pdf/223

 studied all the symptoms of first hate. I say ‘first,’ gentlemen, because it was the converse of first love. But, as a fact, I gained my queer experience at an age when I had no definite ideas about either love or hatred. I was only eight years old. But that is not the point; the girl herself is the centre of the story. However. . . . Listen!

“One fine summer evening before sunset, with my governess Zinotchka, an entrancing, romantic creature just out of school, I sat in the nui'sery at lessons. Zinotchka looked abstractedly out of the window and said to me —

“‘Yes, we inhale oxygen. Now tell me, Petya, what do we exhale?’

“‘Carbonic acid gas,’ I answered, also looking out of the window.

“‘Quite right,’ said Zinotchka. ‘The plants, on the other hand, inhale carbonic acid and exhale oxygen. Carbonic acid gas is contained in seltzer water and in samovar smoke. ... It is a very dangerous gas. Near Naples there is a so-called Dog's Cavern full of it; if you put a dog in this cavern it is quickly suffocated.’

“This unhappy cavern near Naples was a physical phenomenon which no governess ever forgot. Zinotchka always impressed on me strongly the value of natural science, though she knew nothing about chemistry save the fate of these dogs.