'Ay! the great lord had forgot.'
She rose up with the dust on her white hair, and thrust forward a young boy, and put her hands on the boy's shoulders and made him kneel.
'There is the jewel, Paul Ivanovitch. It is time the Gospodar kept it now.'
Paul Zabaroff did not understand. He looked down at the little serf kneeling in the dust.
'A handsome child. May the land have many such to serve the Tsar. Is he your grandson, good mother?'
The boy was beautiful, with long curling fair hair and a rosy mouth, and eyes like the blue heavens in a night of frost. His limbs were naked, and his chest. He had a shirt of sheepskin.
Old Maritza kept her hands on the shoulders of the kneeling child.
'He is thy son, O lord!'
'My son!'
'Ay. The lord has forgotten. The lord tarried but one night, but he bade my Sacha serve drink to him in his chamber, and on the morrow, when he left, Sacha wept. The lord has forgotten!'