lose to me, my dear child!"

There was something particularly sweet and soft in her caresses,
something altogether new to Foma, and he stared into the old woman's
eyes with curiosity and expectation on his face. This old woman led him
into a new world, hitherto unknown to him. The very first day, having
put him to bed, she seated herself by his side, and, bending over the
child, asked him:

"Shall I tell you a story, Fomushka?"

And after that Foma always fell asleep amid the velvet-like sounds of
the old woman's voice, which painted before him a magic life. Giants
defeating monsters, wise princesses, fools who turned out to be
wise--troops of new and wonderful people were passing before the boy's
bewitched imagination, and his soul was nourished by the wholesome
beauty of the national creative power. Inexhaustible were the treasures
of the memory and the fantasy of this old woman, who oftentimes,
in slumber, appeared to the boy--now like the witch of the
fairy-tales--only a kind and amiable old witch--now like the beautiful,
all-wise Vasilisa. His eyes wide open, holding his breath, the boy
looked into the darkness that filled his chamber and watched it as it
slowly trembled in the light of the little lamp that was burning before
the image. And Foma filled this darkness with wonderful pictures of
fairy-tale life. Silent, yet living shadows, were creeping over the
walls and across the floor; it was both pleasant and terrible to him to
watch their life; to deal out unto them forms and colours, and, having
endowed them with life, instantly to destroy them all with a single
twinkle of the eyelashes. Something new appeared in his dark eyes,
something more childish and naive, less grave; the loneliness and the
darkness, awaking in him a painful feeling of expectation, stirred his
curiosity, compelled him to go out to the dark corner and see what
was hidden there beyond the thick veils of darkness. He went and found
nothing, but he lost no hope of finding it out.

He feared his father and respected him. Ignat's enormous size, his
harsh, trumpet-like voice, his bearded face, his gray-haired head, his
powerful, long arms and his flashing eyes--all these gave to Ignat the
resemblance of the fairy-tale robbers.

Foma shuddered whenever he heard his voice or his heavy, firm steps; but
when the father, smiling kind-heartedly, and talking playfully in a loud
voice, took him upon his knees or threw him high up in the air with hi