THE SWEET-SCENTED NAME
tram-car, in the company of strangers, pushing and jostling one another, Nadezhda Alexevna closed her eyes and remembered her own little child. Once more she looked into his clear eyes, once more she heard the tender lispings of his unuttered words … all the way to the end of her journey, when the time came for her to get out of the car.
III
When the tram stopped Nadezhda Alexevna made her way along the snow-covered streets, past the low wooden and stone houses, past the gardens and enclosed spaces of the remote suburb. She was alone. Many of the other passengers had been met, but for her there was no companion. And she thought to herself as she walked along:
"My sin will always remain with me; I can never get away from it. How is it that I go on living? Even little Serezha is dead."
A dull pain gnawed at her heart; she could not answer her own question:
"Why do I go on living? Yet why should I die?"
And again she thought:
"He is always with me, my dear little
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