My uncle frowned, and walked about more rapidly than ever.
“Brother,” my mother inquired softly, “what would it cost to go abroad?”
“At least three thousand...” my uncle answered in a tearful voice. “I would go, but where am I to get it? I haven’t a farthing. Pff!... heartburn!”
My uncle stopped to look dejectedly at the grey, overcast prospect from the window, and began pacing to and fro again.
A silence followed.... Mother looked a long while at the ikon, pondering something, then she began crying, and said:
“I’ll give you the three thousand, brother....”
Three days later the majestic boxes went off to the station, and the privy councillor drove off after them. As he said good-bye to mother he shed tears, and it was a long time before he took his lips from her hands, but when he got into his carriage his face beamed with childlike pleasure.... Radiant and happy, he settled himself comfortably, kissed his hand to my mother, who was crying, and all at once his eye was caught by me. A look of the utmost astonishment came into his face.
“What boy is this?” he asked.
My mother, who had declared my uncle’s coming was a piece of luck for which I must thank God, was bitterly mortified at this question. I was in no mood for questions. I looked at my uncle’s happy face, and for some reason I felt fearfully sorry for him. I could not resist jumping up to the carriage and hugging that frivolous man, weak as all men are. Looking into his face and wanting to say something pleasant, I asked:
“Uncle, have you ever been in a battle?”