There was something particularly sweet and soft in her caresses,
something altogether new to Foma, and he stared into the old
woman's eyes with curiosity and expectation on his face. This old
woman led him into a new world, hitherto unknown to him. The very
first day, having put him to bed, she seated herself by his side,
and, bending over the child, asked him:

"Shall I tell you a story, Fomushka?"

And after that Foma always fell asleep amid the velvet-like
sounds of the old woman's voice, which painted before him a magic
life. Giants defeating monsters, wise princesses, fools who
turned out to be wise--troops of new and wonderful people were
passing before the boy's bewitched imagination, and his soul was
nourished by the wholesome beauty of the national creative power.
Inexhaustible were the treasures of the memory and the fantasy of
this old woman, who oftentimes, in slumber, appeared to the boy--
now like the witch of the fairy-tales--only a kind and amiable
old witch--now like the beautiful, all-wise Vasilisa. His eyes
wide open, holding his breath, the boy looked into the darkness
that filled his chamber and watched it as it slowly trembled in
the light of the little lamp that was burning before the image.
And Foma filled this darkness with wonderful pictures of fairy-
tale life. Silent, yet living shadows, were creeping over the
walls and across the floor; it was both pleasant and terrible to
him to watch their life; to deal out unto them forms and colours,
and, having endowed them with life, instantly to destroy them all
with a single twinkle of the eyelashes. Something new appeared in
his dark eyes, something more childish and naive, less grave; the