Getting the mother's consent, we entered the garden, where we helped
ourselves freely to the good fruit and enjoyed the fragrance of many
flowers. At noon, Sarkis came home from the store, and invited me to
dinner. My gaze was continually directed toward the beautiful Takusch.
Oh, well-remembered years! What a pity it is that they pass by so
quickly! Two or three months later I journeyed to the Black Sea, where I
was apprenticed to a merchant, and since that time I have not been in my
native city--for some twenty-four years--and all that I have told was
awakened in my memory in a trice by my meeting with Hripsime.

The old woman was still standing on the site of the choked-up spring,
scratching around on the ground with her stick.

"Nurse Hripsime, where is Sarkis and his family now?" I asked.

"Did you know him, then?" she asked, astonished.

"Yes, a little," I replied.

"Your parents were acquainted with him?"

"No. I was only once in his house, and then as a boy."

"Oh, then! That was his happiest time. What pleasant times we had in his
garden! Formerly it was not as it is now--not a trace of their pleasant
garden remains. The house has disappeared. Look again: yonder was the
kitchen, there the hen-house, there the barn, and here the spring."

As she spoke she pointed out with her stick each place, but of the