“I can’t stand rude people,” said Katya, growing red with vexation.
A little, brown-faced girl in a red dress looked long at Grisha, and knitted her brows as in reflection. Then she scanned the other children with her perplexed eyes, and asked quietly:
“Why then did he smile?”
II
It was not often that Grisha’s wardrobe received important additions. His mother could not afford it; hence, every item gave Grisha great joy. The autumn cold came, and Grisha’s mother bought an overcoat, a hat and mittens. The mittens pleased Grisha more than anything else.
On the holiday, after Mass, he put on his new things and went out to play. He loved to walk about in the streets, and he used to go out alone; his mother had no time to go out with him. She looked proudly out of the window as Grisha walked gravely by. She recalled at that moment her well-to-do relatives who had promised her so much, and had done so little, and she thought: “Well, I’ve managed it without them, thank God!”
It was a cold, clear day; the sun did not shine with its full brightness; the waters of the canals in the city were covered with their first thin ice. Grisha walked the streets, rejoicing in this brisk cold, in his new clothes, and with his naïve fancies; he always loved to dream when he was alone, and he dreamt always of great deeds, of fame, of a bright, happy life in a rich house, indeed of everything that was unlike the sad reality.
As Grisha stood on the bank of the canal and looked through the iron railings at the thin ice that floated on the surface, he was approached by a street urchin in threadbare attire, and with hands red from the cold. He entered into conversation with Grisha. Grisha was not afraid of him, and even pitied him because of his benumbed hands. His new acquaintance informed him that he was called Mishka, but that his family name was Babushkin, because he and his mother lived with his babushka.[1]
“But then what is your mother’s family name?”
“My mother’s name?” repeated Mishka, smiling. “She’s called Matushkin, because my babushka is no babushka to her, but is her matushka.”[2]