“I notice a workman passing; he has no wife leaning on his arm, but he has a child with him, a little boy. Both are sad and lonely looking. The man is about thirty years of age: his face is worn and of an unhealthy tinge. He is wearing his Sunday best, a top-coat, rubbed at the seams and with buttons worn almost bare of cloth. The collar of the coat is very soiled, the trousers are cleaner, but look as if they had come straight from the broker’s. His top-hat is very shabby. I have the idea he is a printer. His expression is hard, gloomy, almost sullen. He holds the boy by the hand; the youngster lags behind a little. The child is two, or not much more, very pale and delicate looking, neatly dressed in a tunic, little boots with red uppers, and a hat tricked out with a peacock’s feather. He is weary. The father speaks to him, making fun maybe of his feeble little legs. The youngster makes no reply, and a few paces farther on, his father bends down, lifts him up in his arms and carries him. The child seems pleased, and throws his arms round his father’s neck. He catches sight of me, and from his perch stares down at me in astonishment and curiosity. I give him a little nod, but he frowns and clings closer still to his father’s neck. They must love each other dearly, these two! “In the streets I love to watch the passers-by, gaze into their unknown features, guess their identity, imagine how they exist and what can be their interest in life. To-day I have eyes for none but this father and child. I imagine that the wife and mother had died not long since, that the father is busy working the whole week in the shop, while the child is left to the care of some elderly woman. They probably live in a basement where the father rents or even only shares a room, and to-day, being Sunday, the father is taking the boy to see some relative, the mother’s sister probably. I’m sure this aunt of whom they don’t see much must be married to a non-commissioned officer and live in the basement of the barracks, but in a separate apartment. She mourns her dead sister, but not for long. The widower does not show much grief either, during this visit anyway. He remains preoccupied, has little to say for himself, and replies only to personal questions. Soon he falls silent altogether. Then the samovar is brought in and they all take tea. The boy is left sitting on a bench in the corner, shy and frowning, and he finally drops off to sleep. The aunt and her husband take scant notice of him, except for passing him a cup of milk and a piece of bread. The husband, with not a word to say for himself at first, comes out suddenly with a coarse joke, savouring of the barrack-room, and makes fun of the youngster whom his father begins to scold. The child wants to leave at once, and the father fetches him home from Vyborg to Liteinyi. “To-morrow the father will be back at his workshop, and the youngster left once more with the old woman.”[65]