Avdeitch sighed and said: “But have you nothing warm to wear?”
“Ah, sir,” replied the woman, “although it is the time for warm clothes I had to pawn my last shawl yesterday for two grivenki.”[[4]]
[4]. The grivenka = 10 copecks = about five cents.
Then the woman returned to the bedstead to take her baby, while Avdeitch rose and went to a cupboard. There he rummaged about, and presently returned with an old jacket.
“Here,” he said. “It is a poor old thing, but it will serve to cover you.”
The woman looked at the jacket, and then at the old man. Then she took the jacket and burst into tears. Avdeitch turned away, and went creeping under the bedstead, whence he extracted a box and pretended to rummage about in it for a few moments; after which he sat down again before the woman.
Then the woman said to him: “I thank you in Christ’s name, good grandfather. Surely it was He Himself who sent me to your window. Otherwise I should have seen my baby perish with the cold. When I first came out the day was warm, but now it has begun to freeze. But He, Our Little Father, had placed you in your window, that you might see me in my bitter plight and have compassion upon me.”
Avdeitch smiled and said: “He did indeed place me there: yet, my poor woman, it was for a special purpose that I was looking out.”
Then he told his guest, the soldier’s wife, of his vision, and how he had heard a voice foretelling that to-day the Lord Himself would come to visit him.
“That may very well be,” said the woman as she rose, took the jacket, and wrapped her baby in it. Then she saluted him once more and thanked him.