attentively.
“Is it about Nikolúshka?” he asked.
Princess Márya nodded her head, weeping.
“Márya, you know the Gosp …” but he broke off.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing. You mustn’t cry here,” he said, looking at her with the same cold expression.
When Princess Márya began to cry, he understood that she was crying at the thought that Nikolúshka would be left without a father. With a great effort he tried to return to life and to see things from their point of view.
“Yes, to them it must seem sad!” he thought. “But how simple it is.”
“The fowls of the air sow not, neither do they reap, yet your Father feedeth them,” he said to himself and wished to say to Princess Márya; “but no, they will take it their own way, they won’t understand! They can’t understand that all those