She approached him, looked into his face, and asked softly: "Did they insult you ?" "Yes," he answered.

"That's--hard! I would rather have gone with them." It seemed to her that she saw tears in his eyes, and wishing to soothe him, with an indistinct sense of his pain, she said with a sigh: "Wait a while--they'll take you, too!" "They will!" he replied.
After a pause the mother remarked sorrowfully: "How hard you are, Pasha! If you'd only reassure me once in a while! But you don't.

When I say something horrible, you say something worse." He looked at her, moved closer to her, and said gently: "I cannot, mamma! I cannot lie! You have to get used to it.".