THE KISS OF THE UNBORN
He put his lips to her cheek and whispered gently:
"Why do you weep? How can you have done wrong?"
Silently she sat and listened; she dare not move or open her eyes lest the child should disappear. She let her right hand drop on to her knee, but still kept her eyes covered with the left. Gradually her weeping became less; she must not frighten the child with her woman's tears, the tears of a sinful woman.
And the child went on, kissing her cheek as he spoke, "You haven't done wrong at all."
Then he spoke again, and now his words were those of Serezha:
"I don't want to live in this world. I'm very thankful to you, mother dear."
And again:
"Indeed, dear mother, I don't want to be alive."
These words had sounded terrible in her ears when Serezha had spoken them—terrible because spoken by one who, having received from unseen Powers the living form of mankind, ought to have held as a precious treasure the life committed to his care, and not have wished to destroy it. But these
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