. . . But Truzjka was not paying any attention. She was off in a daydream, watching the candlelight across the room making her shoe into a sled-shaped shadow. Grandmother kissed her good-night with a sigh of despair.
If it was not one thing, it was surely another. . . . Truly, an impossible child. Then one evening in early fall, when Truzjka lay asleep by moonlight, she dreamed the shadows of something passed over her. She dreamed she heard a great hue and a gabble above, as though all the hounds in the world ran yelping through heaven. She awoke with a start, but peering outside, she saw only gunmetal sky and trees all silvery under the moon. Listening, she heard nothing. The air hung silent as an unstruck bell. . . . |