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One day, Volodya brings her some apples, flowers, and a doll that his little sister has given him. "Why is she always so sad?" he asks Maroussya's brother. "It is on account of the grey stone," he replies. "Yes, the grey stone," repeated Maroussya, like a feeble echo. "What grey stone?" "The grey stone that has sucked the life out of her," explained Vanek, gazing at the sky.
Gradually, the little lad gets to know all the inhabitants, and becomes especially intimate with Maroussya, whose eyes have an expression of precocious desolation. "Her smile," says Korolenko, "reminded me of my mother during the last few months of her life; so much so, that I almost used to weep when I watched this little girl."
He has two children: Vanek, a large, dark-haired lad, whom one sees wandering about the village with a sullen look on his face, and Maroussya, a small and thin child, who is gradually fading away in the darkness of her cellar-like home. While strolling about one day, Volodya, impelled by his childish curiosity, decides, with two of his friends, to explore the chapel.
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