Nadejda Nicolaievna by Vsevolod Garshin

The winter passed. The sun rose higher and higher in the heavens, and with ever-increasing strength warmed the streets and roofs of St. Petersburg. Everywhere water was pouring down all the spouts; bits of ice with the noise of thunder came jumping out of them on to the pavements, or into the buckets put to catch them; droshkies appeared rattling along the roads, now bare of snow in places, with a familiar but strangely new sound to the ear.

I have finished my picture. A few more sittings, and it will be possible to take it to the Academy before the Court of Exhibition experts. Helfreich has congratulated me already on my success. Nadejda Nicolaievna is delighted. Looking at the picture and at her face, I often see an up to this time unfamiliar expression on it of quiet satisfaction. Sometimes she has been even gay, and has joked -- for the most part with Senichka, who is engrossed in the reading of numerous books which he says he must read for his picture, in looking at albums, at all sorts of antiquities, and in studying the Gospels. His cats have gone. Only the faithful ginger cat has stayed on, and even he lives in peace, almost undisturbed by his master, and uncalled upon to act as a model. Since our conversation about Ilia Murometz, Simon Ivanovich has only painted one cat picture, and, having sold it for a hundred and fifty roubles, considers himself assured of money for a long time -- the more so that he, to my great astonishment, is not the least embarrassed with his long stay in my flat, where living costs him nothing.