wintry ocean. No, he would not at once set
out upon that long journey. Surely, his ex-
hausted spirit, so tired of cold and crowding
and the struggle with the ever-falling snow,
was resting now in this quiet house.

I was not frightened, but I made no noise.
I did not wish to disturb him. I went softly
down to the kitchen which, tucked away so
snugly underground, always seemed to me the
heart and center of the house. There, on the
bench behind the stove, I thought and thought
about Mr. Shimerda. Outside I could hear the
wind singing over hundreds of miles of snow.
It was as if I had let the old man in out of the
tormenting winter, and were sitting there with
him. I went over all that Antonia had ever
told me about his life before he came to
this country; how he used to play the fiddle
at weddings and dances. I thought about the
friends he had mourned to leave, the trom-
bone-player, the great forest full of game, --
belonging, as Antonia said, to the "nobles," --
from which she and her mother used to steal
wood on moonlight nights. There was a white
hart that lived in that forest, and if any one
killed it, he would be hanged, she said. Such
vivid pictures came to me that they might

[[116]]

p115 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p116w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p117

v?