“Then follow me,” said Grisha.
He turned lightly homewards, and as he walked he did not stop to look round at the meagre, tiresome objects of this grey life. Egorka followed the white boy. He walked quietly and marvelled at the other. He thought for a while, then he asked:
“Are you not one of God’s angels? Why are you so white?”
The quiet boy smiled at these words. He said with a light sigh:
“No, I am a human being.”
“You don’t mean it? An ordinary boy?”
“Just like you—almost like you.”
“How clean you are! I should say you washed yourself seven times a day with egg-soap! You walk about barefoot, not at all like me, and the sunburn doesn’t seem to stick to you—there’s only a cover of dust on your feet.”
The aroma of violets came from somewhere, and it mingled now with the dry smell of the flying dust, now with the sickly, half-sweet, half-bitter odour of the smoke of a forest fire.
The two boys avoided the tiresome monotony of the fields and the roads, and entered the dark silence of the wood. They passed by glades and copses and quietly purling streams. The boys strode along narrow footpaths, where the gentle dew clung to their feet. Everything appeared wonderful in Egorka’s eyes, used only to the raging turbulence of a malignant yet dull and grey life. The time lingered on, running and consuming itself, wreathed in a circle of delicious moments, and it seemed to Egorka that he had come into some fabulous land. He slept somewhere at night, and he felt intensely happy on opening his eyes next morning, having been awakened by the twitter of birds which shook the dew from the pliant tree-limbs; then he played with the cheerful boys and listened to music.