so, quivered
in his hand. From behind his shoulder Foma saw the pale, frightened and
joyous face of Luba--she looked at her father with beseeching eyes and
it seemed she was on the point of crying out. For a few moments all were
silent and motionless, crushed as they were by the immensity of their
emotions. The silence was broken by the low, but dull and quivering
voice of Yakov Tarasovich:

"You have grown old, Taras."

The son laughed in his father's face silently, and, with a swift glance,
surveyed him from head to foot.

The father tearing his hands from the door posts, made a step toward his
son and suddenly stopped short with a frown. Then Taras Mayakin, with
one huge step, came up to his father and gave him his hand.

"Well, let us kiss each other," suggested the father, softly.

The two old men convulsively clasped each other in their arms, exchanged
warm kisses and then stepped apart. The wrinkles of the older man
quivered, the lean face of the younger was immobile, almost stern. The
kisses had changed nothing in the external side of this scene, only
Lubov burst into a sob of joy, and Foma awkwardly moved about in his
seat, feeling as though his breath were failing him.

"Eh, children, you are wounds to the heart--you are not its joy,"
complained Yakov Tarasovich in a ringing voice, and he evidently
invested a great deal in these words, for immediately after he had
pronounced them he became radiant, more courageous, and he said briskly,
addressing himself to his daughter:

"Well, have you melted with joy? You had better go and prepare something
for us--tea and so forth. We'll entertain the prodigal son. You must
have forgotten, my little old man, what sort of a man your father is?"

Taras Mayakin scrutinized his parent with a meditative look of his large
eyes and he smiled, speechless, clad in black, wherefore the gray hair
on his head and in his beard told more strikingly.

"Well, be seated. Tell me--how have you lived, what have you done? What
are you looking at? Ah! That's my godson. Ignat Gordyeeff's son, Foma.
Do you remember Ignat?"

"I remember everything," said Taras.

"Oh! That's good, if you are not bragging. Well, are you married?"

"I am a widower."

"Have you any children?"

"They died. I had two."

"That's a pity. I would have had grandchildren."

"May I smoke?" asked Taras.

"Go ahead. Just look at him, you're smoking cigars."

"Don't you like them?"

"I? Come on, it's al