"It's always been gramaw first in this house, anyway. I couldn't even have company since I'm grown up because the way she's always allowed around. Nobody can say I ain't good to gramaw; Lester say it's beautiful the way I am with her, remembering always to bring the newspapers and all, but just the same I know when right's right and wrong's wrong. If my life ain't more important than gramaw's, with hers all lived, all right. Go ahead!" "Selene, Selene, ain't it coming to gramaw, after all her years' hard work helping us that--she should be entitled to go back with her wreaths for the graves? Ain't she entitled to die with that off her poor old mind? You bad, ungrateful girl, you, it's coming to a poor old woman that's suffered as terrible as gramaw that I should find a way to take her back." "Take her back. Where--to jail? To prison in Siberia herself--" "There's a way--" "You know gramaw's too old to take a trip like that. You know in your own heart she won't ever see that day. Even before the war, much less now, there wasn't a chance for her to get passports back there. I don't say it ain't all right to kid her along, but when it comes to--to keeping me out of the--the biggest thing that can happen to a girl--when gramaw wouldn't know the difference if you keep showing her the bank-book--it ain't right. That's what it ain't. It ain't right!" In the smallest possible compass, Miss Coblenz crouched now upon the floor, head down somewhere in her knees, and her curving back racked with rising sobs. "Selene--but some day--" "Some day nothing! A woman like gramaw can't do much more than go down-town once a year, and then you talk about taking her to Russia! You can't get in there, I--tell you--no way you try to fix it after--the way gramaw--had--to leave. Even before the war, Ray Letsky's father couldn't get back on business. There's nothing for her there even after she gets there. In thirty years do you think you can find those graves? Do you know the size of Siberia? No! But I got to pay--I got to pay for gramaw's nonsense. But I won't. I won't go to Lester, if I can't go right. I--" "Baby, don't cry so--for God's sake don't cry so! "I wish I was dead." "Sh-h-h--you'll wake gramaw." "I do!" "O God, help me to do the right thing!" "If gramaw could understand, she'd be the first one to tell you the right thing. Anybody would." "No! No! That little bank-book and its entries are her life--her life." "She don't need to know, mamma. I'm not asking that. That's the way they always do with old people to keep them satisfied. Just humor 'em. Ain't I the one with life before me--ain't I, mamma?" "O God, show me the way!" "If there was a chance, you think I'd be spoiling things for gramaw? But there ain't, mamma--not one." "I keep hoping if not before, then after the war. With the help of Mark Haas--"