The old man had tears in his eyes when Anjuta got herself ready next morning for the journey.
"Such a tiny thing, quite alone in the deep forest!" he murmured to himself.
"Tell Lasaref to bring a sack of meal, two large loaves of bread, and some barley, and say that Grandfather has all kinds of fine things ready for him. But mind you don't try to come home by night, Anjuta. Stay with Andryushka for the night, and he will bring you in the sledge in the morning. Tell him I am ill—the bear has badly mauled Ivan the Runaway. Do you understand?"
"Yes; but why do you cry, Grandfather?"
"It is only foolishness.... I have grown quite weak. Now go, and God preserve you! And listen, Anjuta; whenever you feel frightened, you must sing."
The child started and the old man, creeping out of the hut, followed her with his eyes. She soon reached the edge of the clearing. How nimbly her young feet moved! Under the gigantic trees she moved like a little beetle. Now she turned and laughed at him, and his eyes, misty with tears, could see nothing more.
XI
The forest was brilliant in white apparel. Under the wintry veil its creative forces slumbered. Not a tree-top swayed, nor a branch stirred. The sky was covered with grey clouds and the earth with snow, which in the stillness gave out a light crackling sound under Anjuta's feet. She tried once or twice to sing, but the grim silence of the primeval pines sobered her with a sense of weird mystery. She tried to tread as lightly as possible in order not to awake the gloomy trees on the right and left out of their slumbers.
What might not be hidden under these snow-laden branches which almost touched the ground? How terrible it would be if "it" suddenly crept out without a sound. The fact that she could not define to herself what the "it" was, made it all the more formidable.
And now she heard a low moaning at the bottom of the ravine. Perhaps it was the brook, but if...? She did not think the thought out, but hastened forward, stumbling and gliding. She looked attentively for the axe-notches in the tree-trunks in order not to lose her way. She also saw the sign of the cross on the birch half obliterated with snow.