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Though she reproached herself at once for this unfounded, superstitious dread, nevertheless she could not enter wholeheartedly into the spirit of Lelechka's favourite game, and she tried to divert Lelechka's attention to something else. Lelechka was a lovely and obedient child. She eagerly complied with her mother's new wishes.
She glanced at her mother with her dimmed eyes, and lisped in a scarcely audible, hoarse voice: "Tiu-tiu, mamochka! Make tiu-tiu, mamochka!" Serafima Aleksandrovna hid her face behind the curtains near Lelechka's bed. How tragic! "Mamochka!" called Lelechka in an almost inaudible voice.
Of late, in those rare moments of the mistress' absence from the nursery, Fedosya had again taught Lelechka to hide; and when Lelechka's mother, on coming in, saw how lovely the child looked when she was hiding, she herself began to play hide and seek with her tiny daughter.
Lelechka's mother bent over her, and Lelechka, her vision grown still more dim, saw her mother's pale, despairing face for the last time. "A white mamochka!" whispered Lelechka. Mamochka's white face became blurred, and everything grew dark before Lelechka. She caught the edge of the bed-cover feebly with her hands and whispered: "Tiu-tiu!"
In his dreams he saw a stove, by the stove his grandfather sitting with his legs dangling down, barefooted, and reading a letter to the cooks, and Viun walking round the stove wagging his tail. Everything in Lelechka's nursery was bright, pretty, and cheerful. Lelechka's sweet voice charmed her mother. Lelechka was a delightful child.
That was why every movement of Lelechka's bewitched her mother. It was great bliss to hold Lelechka on her knees and to fondle her; to feel the little girl in her arms a thing as lively and as bright as a little bird. To tell the truth, Serafima Aleksandrovna felt happy only in the nursery. She felt cold with her husband.
There was no other such child, there never had been, and there never would be. Lelechka's mother, Serafima Aleksandrovna, was sure of that. Lelechka's eyes were dark and large, her cheeks were rosy, her lips were made for kisses and for laughter. But it was not these charms in Lelechka that gave her mother the keenest joy. Lelechka was her mother's only child.
Serafima Aleksandrovna remained standing over Lelechka's bed a long while, and she kept looking at Lelechka with tenderness and fear. "I'm a mother: is it possible that I shouldn't be able to protect her?" she thought, as she imagined the various ills that might befall Lelechka. She prayed long that night, but the prayer did not relieve her sadness. Several days passed. Lelechka caught cold.
Serafima Aleksandrovna laid her cheek upon the edge of Lelechka's coffin, and whispered: "Tiu-tiu, little one!" The little one did not reply. Then there was some kind of stir and confusion around Serafima Aleksandrovna; strange, unnecessary faces bent over her, some one held her and Lelechka was carried away somewhere.
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