r years' hard
work helping us that--she should be entitled to go back with her wreaths
for the graves? Ain't she entitled to die with that off her poor old
mind? You bad, ungrateful girl, you, it's coming to a poor old woman
that's suffered as terrible as gramaw that I should find a way to take
her back."

"Take her back. Where--to jail? To prison in Siberia herself--"

"There's a way--"

"You know gramaw's too old to take a trip like that. You know in your
own heart she won't ever see that day. Even before the war, much less
now, there wasn't a chance for her to get passports back there. I don't
say it ain't all right to kid her along, but when it comes to--to
keeping me out of the--the biggest thing that can happen to a girl--when
gramaw wouldn't know the difference if you keep showing her the
bank-book--it ain't right. That's what it ain't. It ain't right!"

In the smallest possible compass, Miss Coblenz crouched now upon the
floor, head down somewhere in her knees, and her curving back racked
with rising sobs.

"Selene--but some day--"

"Some day nothing! A woman like gramaw can't do much more than go
down-town once a year, and then you talk about taking her to Russia! You
can't get in there, I--tell you--no way you try to fix it after--the way
gramaw--had--to leave. Even before the war, Ray Letsky's father couldn't
get back on business. There's nothing for her there even after she gets
there. In thirty years do you think you can find those graves? Do you
know the size of Siberia? No! But I got to pay--I got to pay for
gramaw's nonsense. But I won't. I won't go to Lester, if I can't go
right. I--"

"Baby, don't cry so--for God's sake don't cry so!

"I wish I was dead."

"Sh-h-h--you'll wake gramaw."

"I do!"

"O God, help me to do the right thing!"

"If gramaw could understand, she'd be the first one to tell you the
right thing. Anybody would."

"No! No! That little bank-book and its entries are her life--her life."

"She don't need to know, mamma. I'm not asking that. That's the way they
always do with old people to keep them satisfied. Just humor 'em. Ain't
I the one with life before me--ain't I, mamma?"

"O God, show me the way!"

"If there was a chance, you think I'd be spoiling things for gramaw? But
there ain't, mamma--not one."

"I keep hoping if not before, then after the war. With the help of Mark
Haas--"

"With the book in her drawer like always, and the entries changed once
in a