frightened?”
“Yes.”
“Every one is frightened when they come here first, but that is nothing. And you need not be afraid of me, of all people. I never hurt any one. Wouldyou like to smoke”? No, don’t! It is too soon; wait a year or two. And whereare your parents? You have none? Ah, well, you don’t need them; you
Eric Decker Jersey will beable to get along without them. Only you must not be afraid, do you see?”
It was a long time since I had come across any one who spoke to mesimply and kindly in language that I could understand, and it wasinexpressibly pleasant to me to listen to him. When he took me back to mycot I asked him : “Come and sit beside me.”
“All right,” he agreed. “Who are you?”
“I? I am a soldier, a real soldier, a Cossack. And I have been in the wars— well, of course I have! Soldiers live for war. I have fought with the Hun —garians, with the Circassians, and the Poles, as many as you like. War, myboy, is a great profession.”
I closed my eyes for a minute, and when I opened them, there, in theplace of the soldier, sat grandmother, in a dark frock, and he was standing byher. She was saying: “Dear me! So they are all dead?”
The sun was playing in the room, now gilding every object, then hiding,and then looking radiantly upon us all again, just like a child frolicking. Babushka bent over me and asked : “What is it, my darling? They have been mutilating you? I told that oldred devil — ”
“I will make all the necessary arrangements,” said the soldier, goingaway, and grandmother, wiping the tears from her face, said: “Our soldier, it seems, comes from Balakhna.”
I still thought that I must be dreaming, and kept silence. The doctorcame, bandaged my burns, and, behold! I was sitting with grandmother in acab, and driving through the streets of the town. She told me: “That grandfather of ours he is going quite out of his mind, and he is sogreedy that it is sickening to look at him. Not long ago he took a hundredrubles out of the office-book of Xlist the furrier, a new friend of his. What aset-out there was! E-h-h-h!”
The sun shone brightly, and clouds floated in the sky like white birds. Wewent by the bridge across the Volga. The ice groaned under us, water wasvisible under the planks of the bridge, and the golden cross gleamed over thered dome of the cathedral in the market-p
Champ Bailey Jersey lace. We met a woman with a broad face. She was carrying an armful ofwillow-branches. The spring was coming; soon it would be
Knowshon Moreno Jersey Easter. “I love you very much. Grandmother!”
This did not seem to surprise her. She answered in a calm voice : “That is because we are of the same family. But— and I do not say it boastfully — there are others who love me, too
Elvis Dumervil Jersey ,thanks to thee,
Chris Harris Jersey O Blessed Lady!” She added, smiling: “She will soon be rejoicing; her Son will rise again! Ah, Variusha, mydaughter!”
Then she was silent.Chapter 2 GRANDFATHER met me in the yard; he was on his