“Then it is for us, their elders, to teach them better,” he replied.
“That is what I say myself at times,” rejoined the old woman. “I had seven of them once at home, but have only one daughter now.” And she went on to tell Avdeitch where she and her daughter lived, and how they lived, and how many grandchildren she had.
“I have only such strength as you see,” she said, “yet I work hard, for my heart goes out to my grandchildren—the bonny little things that they are! No children could run to meet me as they do. Aksintka, for instance, will go to no one else. ‘Grandmother,’ she cries, ‘dear grandmother, you are tired’”—and the old woman became thoroughly softened. “Everyone knows what boys are,” she added presently, referring to the culprit. “May God go with him!”
She was raising the sack to her shoulders again when the boy darted forward and said:
“Nay, let me carry it, grandmother. It will be all on my way home.”
The old woman nodded assent, gave up the sack to the boy, and went away with him down the street. She had quite forgotten to ask Avdeitch for the money for the apple. He stood looking after them, and observing how they were talking together as they went.
Having seen them go, he returned to his room, finding his spectacles—unbroken—on the steps as he descended them. Once more he took up his awl and fell to work, but had done little before he found it difficult to distinguish the stitches, and the lamplighter had passed on his rounds. “I too must light up,” he thought to himself. So he trimmed the lamp, hung it up, and resumed his work. He finished one boot completely, and then turned it over to look at it. It was all good work. Then he laid aside his tools, swept up the cuttings, rounded off the stitches and loose ends, and cleaned his awl. Next he lifted the lamp down, placed it on the table, and took his Testament from the shelf. He had intended opening the book at the place which he had marked last night with a strip of leather, but it opened itself at another instead. The instant it did so, his vision of last night came back to his memory, and, as instantly, he thought he heard a movement behind him as of someone moving towards him. He looked round and saw in the shadow of a dark corner what appeared to be figures—figures of persons standing there, yet could not distinguish them clearly. Then the voice whispered in his ear:
“Martin, Martin, dost thou not know me?”
“Who art Thou?” said Avdeitch.
“Even I!” whispered the voice again. “Lo, it is I!”—and there stepped from the dark corner Stepanitch. He smiled, and then, like the fading of a little cloud, was gone.