The stories he told were not new; we had heard them all many times before. Accounts of his own trips in pathless mountains, adventures of the danger-loving Georgians, legends of his own people, the Armenians—they had lost not a shade of their interest in the years which had gone since those other winter evenings, when the sea raged just beyond the pasture-bars and made us crowd close to the fireplace and to him. Often, too, he talked of his children, but always it was of their life before Manya had waved her handkerchief from a window. Only of Russia itself he would not speak, nor would he read our Russian newspapers.
'Let her be,' he once said, 'the vampire! I ask only to forget.'
And we thought that he did forget, for the months brought to him an ever-deepening contentment. His shoulders were squaring themselves into old accustomed lines, the illness which had menaced gave no sign. Spring found him searching for a plot of land which would be his own, for Kolya had but two more years to serve.
III
And then, in the summer, came the war.
We translated the news to Babanchik—he had never finished learning his English. A smile twisted his mouth.
'Retribution!' he said; and there was something very dreadful in his uplifted hand. 'I pray that Germany will destroy all Russia.'
We turned upon him in indignation. Under our accusing eyes his arm came down and hung limp by his side. He swung on his heel and left us, muttering as he went,—
'Nothing but German shells will ever break down her prisons.'
There followed the weeks and months of tense living. The Russian papers were filled with opportunities for the new work; names of old friends appeared in committee lists. As for us, we could but talk of it endlessly, and dream of it, wait for the morning paper, and talk again. We still saw Babanchik every day, but, every day, he mattered less. We could, and did, accept without comment his attitude toward the country which still held our affection, but, somehow, we had lost interest in his stories.