Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 08 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/332

318 digger; but the mother's complaints expressed in the one phrase: "O Lord, if this little slave would only die!"—present to the reader the whole essence of the situation; and immediately afterward that night when the older brother is wakened by his mother's sobs, and her answer to the grandmother's question, "What is the matter?":—"My son is dead;" and this old Babushka getting up and kindling a fire and washing the poor little boy—all these details are his own; it is all so concise, so simple, and so strong! Not a word can be dropped, not a word changed or added! There are five lines all together, and in these five lines the whole picture of that pitiful night is presented to the reader: a picture reflected in the mirror of a six- or seven-year-old lad's imagination.

"At midnight, mother was weeping. Grandmother got up and says:—

"'What is the matter? Christ be with you.'

"Mother says:—

"'My son is dead.'

"Grandmother lighted the fire, washed the little boy, put on his shirt and his girdle, and laid him under the Saints. When it was light …"

You see the boy himself, wakened by the well-known sobbing of his mother, looking out, half asleep, from under his kaftan somewhere on the sleeping-bunk, and with frightened, shining eyes watching all that is going on in the izba; you see also that emaciated martyr of a soldier's wife who the day before had exclaimed: "If only this little slave would die!" now repentant and so overwhelmed by the death of this same slave that all she can say is u menya suin pomer "My son is dead," does not know what has happened to her, and calls the old woman to her aid; you see also this old woman, wearied out by the toils of life, bent and lean, and with fleshless limbs, who with her work-worn hands deliberately, calmly takes hold: she lights the pine stick, she brings water and washes the little lad's body, puts