“Ask the father, boy, ask the father. As for me, why, ‘A word is not a bird: if it flies out, you’ll never catch it again.’” Old Feodora would not have thought it any harm to put her nursling off with a string of falsehoods, if they had occurred to her at the moment, or if she had thought them necessary; for these poor, “dimly-lighted souls” had little idea of the value of truth. But Ivan’s history was now so much an “open secret” in the village, that she saw no reason why the boy should not know it himself, since he was twelve years old, and very intelligent. Still, she was afraid to tell him anything without her husband’s knowledge and concurrence. Soon afterwards the starost came in--an imposing and venerable figure, his long, gray beard nearly covering the breast of his caftan. He would have parted with his head quite as readily as with that beard. As soon as he had made his reverence to the sacred picture, seated himself in his chair by the stove, and exchanged his formidable (and fragrant) boots of Russia leather for a pair of lapti, or bark slippers, Ivan stood up before him, and put the question directly, “Bativshka, whose son am I?” “Great St. Nicholas! what has come to the boy?” the starost exclaimed; then he looked perplexed, and hesitated for an answer. His wife leaned over the back of his chair and said a few words in a low voice, and a whispered discussion followed, during which Ivan waited patiently. Presently Feodora returned to her cooking; and the starost solemnly crossed his breast with the thumb and two fingers of his right hand, then taking from his pocket a medal with the effigy of his patron saint upon it, he brightened it with a rub against his sleeve, and said a prayer to it, or to the personage it represented. Having thus prepared himself, he told Ivan to sit down at his feet. “My child,” he said, “since you wish to know, I will tell you to-day what name you have a right to bear; but pray to your saint day and night that the knowledge may work you no harm.” “Why should it work me harm, bativshka? Is it that I am the son of a bad man?” “God only knows that. What I know is that you are the son of our lord and master.” “Not of Zoubof! no, no!” cried Ivan, wondering. The old man replied by a gesture of supreme contempt: “_Zoubof!_ He is of yesterday. Such as he come and go and are forgotten, like last year’s snow. But you, Ivan Barrinka, you are the son of our true lord, our master in God’s sight--a great boyar,[1] a prince who can trace his lineage back to the days of Rurik. Yes; you are the son of”--here he paused and bowed his gray head reverently--“of Prince Pojarsky.” Ivan was impressed by the solemn tone in which these words were spoken. He waited in silence for a few moments, then he questioned in a low voice, “And who is Prince Pojarsky?”