CHAPTER VIII.
AN UNEXPECTED ARRIVAL Some time after Nikolai had got his credentials, he was pleasantly surprised by a visitor--he could hardly believe his own eyes--none other than his mother, who was watching for him one Saturday afternoon, outside the basement where he dined.
She had heard that he had become a journeyman, and could not rest until she got a lift on one of the plank-loads which was going in to town, and paid him a visit.

She was so glad.

If he knew how many sighs she had heaved for his sake, and how many bitter tears she had shed--the big, handsome, half peasant-clad woman was red in the face, and wept and dried her eyes incessantly on her folded pocket-handkerchief, while she gave expression to her emotion and joy over the way in which everything had turned out, as if by special guidance.
She had been so unfortunate for a long time; but now that she had got her son again, everything looked different for her.

Oh, how big and broad and fine he had grown--a regular smith! He had a frock-coat now for Sundays, hadn't he?
And he must have a hat, too.

He must let her advise him; she knew all about it from what she had seen in the world.
It was with quite strange, at first almost mixed, feelings that Nikolai thus suddenly saw a mother fall down to him--some day a father might come tumbling down too! It was so many years since he had thought of her, and the picture he really had of her was buried in the bitter salt slough of tears in the depths of his recollections, which he was far from being in the mood to stir up.