And it was easy to decide what to do with my wealth.

I bought presents for everybody I knew.

I remember to this day the pattern of the shawl I bought for my mother.

When I came home and unpacked my treasures, I was the proudest girl in Polotzk.
The proudest, but not the happiest.

I found my family in such a pitiful state that all my joy was stifled by care, if only for a while.
Unwilling to spoil my holiday, my mother had not written me how things had gone from bad to worse during my absence, and I was not prepared.
Fetchke met me at the station, and conducted me to a more wretched hole than I had ever called home before.
I went into the room alone, having been greeted outside by my mother and brother.