embracing all eternity with one glance, I saw
how all these walls had been built, I saw how they were being destroyed,
and I alone always was and always will be. Everything will pass, but
I shall remain. And everything seemed to me strange and queer--so
unnatural--the table and the food upon it, and everything outside of me.
It all seemed to me transparent and light, existing only temporarily.

"Why don't you eat?" asked my wife.

I smiled:

"Bread--it is so strange."

She glanced at the bread, at the stale, dry crust of bread, and for some
reason her face became sad. Still continuing to look at it, she silently
adjusted her apron with her hands and her head turned slightly, very
slightly, in the direction where the children were sleeping.

"Do you feel sorry for them?" I asked.

She shook her head without removing her eyes from the bread.

"No, but I was thinking of what happened in our life before."

How incomprehensible! As one who awakens from a long sleep, she surveyed
the room with her eyes and all seemed to her so incomprehensible. Was
this the place where we had lived?

"You were my wife."

"And there are our children."

"Here, beyond the wall, your father died."

"Yes. He died. He died without awakening."

The smallest child, frightened at something in her sleep, began to cry.
And this simple childish cry, apparently demanding something, sounded
so strange amid these phantom walls, while there, below, people were
building barricades.

She cried and demanded--caresses, certain queer words and promises to
soothe her. And she soon was soothed.

"Well, go!" said my wife in a whisper.

"I should like to kiss them."

"I am afraid you will wake them up."

"No, I will not."

It turned out that the oldest child was awake--he had heard and
understood everything. He was but nine years old, but he understood
everything--he met me with a deep, stern look.

"Will you take your gun?" he asked thoughtfully and earnestly.

"I will."

"It is behind the stove."

"How do you know? Well, kiss me. Will you remember me?"

He jumped up in his bed, in his short little shirt, hot from sleep, and
firmly clasped my neck. His arms were burning--they were so soft and
delicate. I lifted his hair on the back of his head and kissed his
little neck.

"Will they kill you?" he whispered right into my ear.

"No, I will come back."

But why did he not cry? He had cried sometimes when I had simply left
the house