Elena Kirillovna seats herself upon the bench. She looks out on the road. She sits quietly, seeming so small, so slender, and so erect. She waits a long time. She falls into a doze.
Through the thin haze of slumber she can see a beloved, smooth face smiling, and she can hear a quiet, dear voice calling:
“Grandma!”
She gives a start and opens her eyes. There is no one there. But she waits. She believes and waits.
XX
There is a lightness in the air. The road is radiant and tranquil. A gentle, refreshing breeze softly passes and repasses her. The sun is warming her old bones, it is caressing her lean back through her dress. Everything round her rejoices in the green, the golden, and the blue. The foliage of the birches, of the willows, and of the limes in full bloom is rustling quietly. From the fields comes the honeyed smell of clover.
Oh, how light and lovely the air is upon the earth!
How beautiful thou art, my earth, my golden, my emerald, my sapphire earth! Who, born to thy heritage would care to die, would care to close his eyes upon thy serene beauties and upon thy magnificent spaces? Who, resting in thee, damp Mother Earth, would not wish to rise, would not wish to return to thy enchantments and to thy delights? And what stern fate shall drive one who is aflame with life-thirst to seek the shelter of death?
Upon the road where once he walked he shall walk again. Upon the earth, which still preserves his footprints, he shall walk again. Borya, the grandmother’s beloved Borya, shall return.
A golden bee flies by. It seems to say, the golden bee, that Borya will return to the quiet of the old house and will taste the fragrant honey—the sweet gift of the wise bees, buzzing under the sun upon the beloved earth. The old grandmother, in her joy, will place before the ikon of the Virgin a candle of the purest bees’-wax—a gift of the wise bees, buzzing away among the gold of the sun’s rays—a gift to man and a gift to God.