"Thank God! Who needs me? Nobody!"
"H'm!" said Yegor, fixing his look upon her. "A good person ought
to take care of himself."
"I couldn't learn that from you, even if I were good," the mother
replied, laughing.
Yegor was silent, and paced up and down the room; then he walked
up to her and said: "This is hard, countrywoman! I feel it, it's
very hard for you!"
"It's hard for everybody," she answered, with a wave of her hand.
"Maybe only for those who understand, it's easier. But I understand
a little, too. I understand what it is the good people want."
"If you do understand, granny, then it means that everybody needs
you, everybody!" said Yegor earnestly and solemnly.
She looked at him and laughed without saying anything.
CHAPTER XI
At noon, calmly and in a businesslike way she put the books around
her bosom, and so skillfully and snugly that Yegor announced,
smacking his lips with satisfaction:
"Sehr gut! as the German says when he has drunk a keg of beer.
Literature has not changed you, granny. You still remain the good,
tall, portly, elderly woman. May all the numberless gods grant you
their blessings on your enterprise!"
Within half an hour she stood at the factory gate, bent with the
weight of her burden, calm and assured.
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