"Well, Mother, well?"
Grandmother held up her hands.
"Whatever does it all mean?"
"This is what it means: God is angry with us; He is tearing everything away from us bit by bit. If families lived together in unity, like fingers on a hand—"
It was long since he had spoken so gently and peaceably. I listened, hoping that the old man would extinguish my sense of injury, and help me to forget the yellow pit and the black moist boards in protuberance in its side. But grandmother cut him short harshly:
"Leave off, Father! You have been uttering words like that all your life, and I should like to know who is the better for them? All your life you have eaten into every one as rust corrodes iron."
Grandfather muttered, looked at her, and held his tongue.
In the evening, at the gate, I told Ludmilla sorrowfully about what I had seen in the morning, but it did not seem to make much impression on her.
"Orphans are better off. If my father and mother were to die, I should leave my sister to look after my brother, and I myself would go into a convent for the rest of my life. Where else should I go? I don't expect to get married, being lame and unable to work. Besides, I might bring crippled children into the world."
She spoke wisely, like all the women of our street, and it must have been from that evening that I lost interest in her. In fact, my life took a turn which caused me to see her very seldom.