"At any rate it is impossible to leave this poor baby out on so cold a night," said he, with emotion; "I shall take it to my room. Any one will immediately suppose that it is I who have picked it up."
He opened the door of his lodging. The fire had gone out in the stove; it was pitch dark. He deposited his living bundle on the bed, and again lighted his chips and twigs, of which this time he was lavish.
But when the light again glimmered through the room, and the old man returned to the side of the baby, who moaned constantly, his fright and astonishment knew no bounds. The little creature evidently did not belong to the peasant class; the clothing in which it was wrapped sufficed to show that. And in vain did Iermola imagine a thousand reasons, admit a thousand suppositions; he could not comprehend how a mother or a father could have been able to decide thus to abandon the innocent little creature, the very sight of whom caused him to shed tears of tenderness and emotion. In fact, from the moment when the baby's first cry had reached his ears and his heart, a strange feeling had taken possession of this old man hitherto so tranquil. He felt moved, frightened, but at the same time awakened and enlivened; it seemed as though he had grown twenty years younger in a few moments. He therefore examined with curiosity this little unknown being whom Providence, perhaps in pity for his terrible isolation, had sent him as a consolation at the very moment when he was sadly longing for some one tie which might still bind him to life.
The child, swaddled with care, was nevertheless clothed externally in such a manner as at first sight to conceal his origin. The heartless mother and unfeeling father, touched by some small feeling of solicitude, had covered the baby's long clothes entirely with a large piece of coarse white percale, leaving exposed only a part of the little suffering, weeping face.
Iermola gazed at the baby with his own sad eyes, and took its little hands in his.
It was some time before he remembered that there was something else to do; that a baby who cried so was perhaps hungry; that an unlooked-for burden had been sent him from heaven; that it would be difficult for him to take care of it, even with every exertion that he could make. Then came flashing like lightning before his mind the images of a cradle, a nurse, smiles, maternal cares, at the same time also his own poverty, which would not allow him to pay any one to take care of the little one.
Suddenly he said to himself that hireling hands were not fit to touch this gift of God,--this frail new-born being whom Providence had doubtless intrusted to him that he might be its nurse and father. Then he trembled, as it occurred to him that some one might take this baby from him; and at this thought he felt ready to faint with terror, although he had not yet been able to make up his mind what he should do with it.
"No," he cried aloud, "I will not give it up to any one; it is my child,--the child whom God has sent me. I will never desert the little orphan."
But he must hasten; the baby cried and moaned continually. Iermola again took it in his arms. What should he do? How should he begin? Whose advice should he ask?
As he was thus carrying the baby up and down the room, his arms filled and his mind bewildered by this strange adventure, a heavy little package escaped from the long clothes and dropped on the floor. Iermola in still greater astonishment picked it up and found about fifty pieces of gold wrapped in a scrap of paper. His surprise was so great that he almost let fall his precious burden.