For more than thirty years we lived together in perfect harmony--how much had been spoken, how much thought--how much sorrow drunk.

You are young; it is not for you to grieve! Your life is before you, and you will be rich in all sorts of friendship; while I am old, and now that I buried my only friend, I am like a pauper.

I can no longer make a bosom friend!" The old man's voice began to jar and squeak queerly.

His face was distorted, his lips were stretched into a big grimace and were quivering, and from his small eyes frequent tears were running over the now contracted wrinkles of his face.

He looked so pitiful and so unlike himself, that Foma stopped short, pressed him close to his body with the tenderness of a strong man and cried with alarm: "Don't cry, father--darling! Don't cry." "There you have it!" said Mayakin, faintly, and, heaving a deep sigh, he suddenly turned again into a firm and clever old man.
"You must not cry," said he, mysteriously, seating himself in the carriage beside his godson.