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"Pray, you'll be finished with all this very quickly," he said

"Give ive uidance But give ainst you I need you, yes Yes, I want it to be quick and done, and all its lessons in here, in my mind, to be taken back home "

He smiled "Home is Venice now? You've made the decision so soon?"

"Yes, I know it even at this moment What lies beyond is the birth land, and that's not always hoo?"

Gathering me in his ar ainst him, dreamlessly and fearlessly

Then he set me down on my feet

At once I knew this great dark hill, and the leafless oak forest with its frozen black trunks and skeletal branches I could see the glea strip of the Dnieper River far below My heart scudded inside h city, the city we called Vladimir's City, which was old Kiev

Piles of rubble which had once been city walls were only yards from where I stood

I led the way, easily cli the ruined churches, churches which had been of legendary splendor when Batu Khan had burnt the city in the year 1240

I had grown up ale of ancient churches and brokento hear Mass in our Cathedral of Santa Sofia, one of the few ols had spared In its day, it had been a spectacle of golden do all those of the other churches, and was rurand than its naer and packed with treasures

What I had knoas a stately remnant, a wounded shell

I didn't want to enter the church now It was enough to see it from the outside, because I kne, frolory of this church had once been I understood fros of San Marco, and from the old Byzantine church on the Venetian island of Torcello what glory had once been here for all to see When I thought of the lively crowds of Venice, her students, scholars, lawyers, merchants, I could paint a dense vitality on this bleak and wasted scene

The snoas deep and thick, and few Russians were out in it this frigid early evening So we had it to ourselves, walking through it with ease, not having to pick our way as mortals would

We cauardrail now beneath the snow, and standing there, I looked down on the lower city, the city we c

alled Podil, the only real city of Kiev that reh tirown up I looked down on deep-pitched roofs, their thatch covered in cleansing snow, their chireat grid of such houses and other buildings had long ago fored to survive fire after fire and even the worst Tatar raids