Page:Andreyev - The Crushed Flower (Knopf, 1917).djvu/43

Rh very slightly, in the direction where the children were sleeping.

"Do you feel sorry for them?" I asked.

She shook her head without removing her eyes from the bread.

"No, but I was thinking of what happened in our life before."

How incomprehensible! As one who awakens from a long sleep, she surveyed the room with her eyes and all seemed to her so incomprehensible. Was this the place where we had lived?

"You were my wife."

"And there are our children."

"Here, beyond the wall, your father died."

"Yes. He died. He died without awakening."

The smallest child, frightened at something in her sleep, began to cry. And this simple childish cry, apparently demanding something, sounded so strange amid these phantom walls, while there, below, people were building barricades. She cried and demanded—caresses, certain queer words and promises to soothe her. And she soon was soothed.

"Well, go!" said my wife in a whisper.

"I should like to kiss them."

"I am afraid you will wake them up."

"No, I will not."

It turned out that the oldest child was awake—he had heard and understood everything. He was but nine years old, but he understood everything—he met me with a deep, stern look.