“No, he doesn’t. I tell him this and that…”

“Wait. So you don’t do as she tells you, lad?”

The lad remained silent, smiling vacantly.

“Well, that’s right, don’t listen to her.—Understand? And you, woman, you’ve started a bad job. I tell you frankly; it’s against the law. And there couldn’t be anything worse than that. Go, there’s nothing for us to talk about.—She’s out to do you in, lad.…”

The lad, with a sneer, said in a high falsetto:

“Oh, I know that, I do o.…”

“Well, go,” Savel said, with a disgusted gesture of dismissal. “Go! You will have no success, woman. None!”

Downcast, they bowed to him in silence and went upwards through the thicket, along a hidden path; I could see that having walked up about a hundred feet, they both started talking, standing close together, facing one another; then they sat down at the foot of a pine, waving their arms about, and a quarrelsome drone reached one’s ears. Meanwhile from the cave came pouring out an indescribably moving exclamation:

“Dee-ear…”

God alone knows how that disfigured old man contrived to put into this word so much enchanting tenderness, so much exultant love.

“It’s too early for you to think of it,” he said, as though he were uttering an incantation, leading the lame girl out of the cave. He held her by the hand as though she were a child who still walked uncertainly. She staggered as she walked, pushing him with her shoulder, wiping the tears from her eyes, with the movements of a cat—her hands were small and white.

The old man made her sit on the stone by his side, talking uninterruptedly, clearly and melodiously—as though telling a fairy-tale:

“Don’t you see you are a flower on earth? God nurtured you to give joy; you can give great happiness; the clear light of your eyes alone is a feast to the soul—dea-ear!…”

The capacity of this word was inexhaustible, and truly it seemed to me that it contained in its depth the key to all the mysteries of life, the solution of all the painful muddle of human relationships. Through its fascination it was able to bewitch not only peasant women, but all men, all living things. Savel uttered it in infinitely various ways—with emotion, with solemnity, with a kind of touching sadness. It sounded at times reproachful, at times tender, or else it poured out in a radiant music of joy; and I always felt, whatever the way in which it was said, that its source was a limitless, an inexhaustible love, a love which knows nothing but itself and marvels at itself, seeing in itself alone the meaning and aim of existence, all the beauty of life, capable of enveloping the world in its power.

At that time I had already taught myself to doubt; but in these hours, on this cloudy day, all my unbelief fled like shadows before the sun at the sound of the familiar word, worn threadbare by long usage.

The lame girl gasped happily as she went away, nodding her head to the old man:

“Thank you, grandfather, thank you, dear.”

“That’s all right. Go, friend, go. And remember—you’re going towards joy, towards happiness, towards a great task—towards joy! Go!”