This fear of talking about the past occasionally came upon Elisaveta. Who knows what sorrow is hid behind a bright smile, and from what darkness has sprung the blossoming which gives sudden joy to a glance, elusively beautiful and born of unhappy worldly experience? “Did you find your way in easily?” asked the golden-haired Nadezhda with a friendly but subtle smile. “It’s usually not a simple matter,” she explained. Elisaveta replied: “A white boy opened the gate for us. He ran off so quickly that we had not even the time to thank him.” Nadezhda suddenly ceased smiling. “Oh yes--he isn’t one of us,” she said falteringly. “They live over there with Trirodov. There are several of them. Wouldn’t you like to have lunch with us?” she asked, cutting short her previous remarks. Elisaveta suspected that Nadezhda wanted to change the subject. “We live here all day long, we eat here, we learn here, and we play here--do everything here,” said Nadezhda. “People have built cities to escape the wild beast, but they themselves have become like wild beasts, like savages.” A bitter note crept into her voice--was it the echo of her past life or was it a thing foreign to her and grafted upon her sensitive nature? She continued: “We have come from the town into the woods. From the wild beast, from the savages of the town. The beast must be killed. The wolf and the fox and the hawk--all those who prey upon others--they must be killed.” Elisaveta asked: “How is one to kill a beast who has grown iron and steel nails, and who has built his lair in the town? It is he who does the killing, and there’s no end in sight to his ferocity.” Nadezhda knitted her eyebrows, pressed her hands, and stubbornly repeated: “We shall kill him, we shall kill him.” CHAPTER II The sisters stayed to lunch. They remained over an hour chattering cheerfully with the children and their instructresses. The children were sweet and confiding. The instructresses, no less simple and charming, seemed cheerful, care-free, and restful. Yet they were always busy, and nothing escaped them. Besides many of the children did certain things without being urged, this being evidently a part of a system, of which the sisters had as yet barely an inkling. Instruction was mixed up with play. One of the instructresses invited the sisters to listen to what she called her lesson. The sisters listened with enjoyment to an interesting discourse concerning the objects the children had observed that day in the wood. There were other instructresses who had just returned from the depths of the wood--some children were going into the wood, others were coming out, quite different ones.