"I will make all the necessary arrangements," said the soldier, going away, and grandmother, wiping the tears from her face, said:
"Our soldier, it seems, comes from Balakhna."
I still thought that I must be dreaming, and kept silence. The doctor came, bandaged my burns, and, behold! I was sitting with grandmother in a cab, and driving through the streets of the town. She told me:
"That grandfather of ours he is going quite out of his mind, and he is so greedy that it is sickening to look at him. Not long ago he took a hundred rubles out of the office-book of Xlist the furrier, a new friend of his. What a set-out there was! E-h-h-h!"
The sun shone brightly, and clouds floated in the sky like white birds. We went by the bridge across the Volga. The ice groaned under us, water was visible under the planks of the bridge, and the golden cross gleamed over the red dome of the cathedral in the market-place.
We met a woman with a broad face. She was carrying an armful of willow-branches. The spring was coming; soon it would be Easter.
"I love you very much, Grandmother!"
This did not seem to surprise her. She answered in a calm voice:
"That is because we are of the same family. But—and I do not say it boastfully—there are others who love me, too, thanks to thee, O Blessed Lady!" She added, smiling:
"She will soon be rejoicing; her Son will rise again! Ah, Variusha, my daughter!"