showed two rows of pearly teeth which the greatest beauty in the world might have envied.
“Ah, Aley, no doubt you are thinking how they are keeping this holiday at home in Daghestan? It must be nice there.”
“Yes,” he answered enthusiastically, and his eyes shone. “But how do you know I am thinking about it?”
“How can I help knowing I It’s better there than here, isn’t it?"
“Oh, why do you say that! . . .”
“What flowers there must be there now, what a paradise!”
“O-on, better not talk of it.”
He was deeply stirred.
“Listen, Aley, had you a sister?”
“Yes, but why?”
“She must be a beauty if she is like you.”
“Like me I She is such a beauty, there is no one in Daghestan handsomer. Ah, she is a beauty, my sister! You’ve never seen anyone like her. My mother was beautiful too.”
“Was your mother fond of you?”
“Ah I What are you saying! She must have died of grieving over me by now. I was her favourite son She loved me more than my sister, more than anyone. . . . She came to me in my dreams last night and cried over me.”
He sank into silence and said nothing more that evening. But from that time forward he sought every opportunity to talk to me, though the respect which he for some reason felt for me always prevented him from speaking first. But he was greatly delighted whenever I addressed him. I questioned him about the Caucasus, about his former life. His brothers did not hinder his talking to me, in fact they seemed to like it. Seeing that I was getting fonder and fonder of Aley, they, too, became much more cordial to me.
Aley helped me at work, did his utmost to be of service to me in the prison, and I could see that he was delighted when he could do anything to please me or make my life easier, and in his efforts to please me there was not a trace of anything cringing or self-seeking, nothing but a warm, friendly feeling for me which he no longer concealed. He had, moreover, a good deal of mechanical ability: he learnt to make underclothes fairly well, and to make boots and later on, as far as he could, to do carpentering. His brothers praised him and were proud of him.
