And she was not surprised and did not question him this time. For some days she had realised that something awful was happening to her son and that now some terrible minute had come for him.
“Rodya, my darling, my first born,” she said sobbing, “now you are just as when you were little. You would run like this to me and hug me and kiss me. When your father was living and we were poor, you comforted us simply by being with us and when I buried your father, how often we wept together at his grave and embraced, as now. And if I’ve been crying lately, it’s that my mother’s heart had a foreboding of trouble. The first time I saw you, that evening, you remember, as soon as we arrived here, I guessed simply from your eyes. My heart sank at once, and today when I opened the door and looked at you, I thought the fatal hour had come. Rodya, Rodya, you are not going away today?”