they were dead was a kind of sorcery. He afterwards forgave her on account of her ignorance, and added, “as though reading the book of the future” (this was Madame Hohlakov’s expression), words of comfort: “that her son Vassya was certainly alive and he would either come himself very shortly or send a letter, and that she was to go home and expect him.”
And “Would you believe it?” exclaimed Madame Hohlakov enthusiastically, “the prophecy has been fulfilled literally indeed, and more than that.”
Scarcely had the old woman reached home when they gave her a letter from Siberia which had been awaiting her. But that was not all; in the letter written on the road from Ekaterinenburg, Vassya informed his mother that he was returning to Russia with an official, and that three weeks after her receiving the letter he hoped “to embrace his mother.”
Madame Hohlakov warmly