“Look out, mother!”

“And what of the Virgin? Let me have him!”

“No, I will carry him.”

After some argument she gave in, and we set off, shoulder to shoulder.

“I hope I don’t drop,” she said, smiling guiltily, and laid her hand on my shoulder.

Meanwhile the new inhabitant of the Russian land, a person with an unknown future, was lying in my arms, breathing noisily like a solid citizen. The sea was splashing and swishing, laced with white shavings; the bushes were whispering to each other; the sun, which had already passed the zenith, was shining.

We were walking, slowly. Now and then the mother would stop to draw a deep breath. She would lift up her head and look about, at the sea, the forest, the mountains, and then she would peer into her son’s face. Her eyes, thoroughly washed by tears of suffering, were again amazingly clear, again blossoming and burning with the blue fire of inexhaustible love.

Once, as she halted, she said:

“Lord, dear God! How good it all is, how good! I could walk like this, I could walk to the end of the world, and he, my little son, would grow, would grow freely amidst plenty, near his mother’s breast, my darling.…” …The sea was booming.…

1912.