"Perhaps he was. Look him in the face, as you did yesterday, remember your promise, and he can't harm you."
As they walked back slowly through the forest Gregor began to talk, and the boy kept close beside him, listening eagerly to every word.
"The first thing, Sasha," said he, "is to get knowledge. You must learn, somehow, to read and write, and count figures. I must tell you all I know, about everything in the world, but that's very little; and it is so mixed up in my head that I don't rightly know where to begin. It's a blessing I have not forgotten much; what I picked up I held on to, and now I see the reason why. There's nothing you can't use, if you wait long enough."
"Tell me about France!" cried Sasha.
"France and Germany too! I was two or three years, off and on, in those foreign parts, and I could talk smartly in the speech of both—Allez! Sortez! Donnez moi du vin!"
Gregor stopped and straightened his bent back; his eyes flashed, and he laughed long and heartily.
"Allez! Sortez! Donnez moi du vin!" repeated Sasha.
Gregor caught up the boy in his arms and kissed him.
"The very thing, Sasha!" he cried. "I'll teach you both tongues,—and all about the strange habits of the people, their houses, and churches, and which way the battle went, and what queer harness they have on their horses, and a talking bird I once saw, and a man that kept a bottle full of lightning in his room, and—"
So his tongue ran on. It was a great delight to him to recall his memories of more than thirty years, and he was constantly surprised to find how many little things that seemed forgotten came back to his mind. Sasha's breath came quick as he listened; his whole body felt warm and nimble, and it suddenly seemed to him possible to learn anything and everything. Before reaching home he had fixed twenty or thirty French words in his memory. There they were, hard and tight; he knew he should never forget them.