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"Don't cry, Amadeo," he said tenderly in my ear

He brushed my hair from my eyes, and with his soft thumb he even wiped away my tears

"Tell it all farewell now, son," he said

I nodded

In a twinkling we stood outside I didn't speak to him He followed me I headed down the slope towards the waterfront city

The srew stronger, and finally I came to the house that I knew had been ? To measure all this by new standards? To confirhtest chance?

Dear God, there was no justification for what I was, an i off the luxurious stews of the wicked Venetian world, I knew it Was this all a vain exercise in self-justification? No, soular house, like so h tie and crude house that was my home

As soon as we reached it, I crept around the sides The slush of the snow had here turned to water, and indeed, the water of the river leaked down the street and into everywhere as it had when I was a child The water leaked into my fine-stitched Venetian boots But it could not paralyze th now froods unknown here, and creatures for whom these filthy peasants, of which I had been one, had no name

I lay h wall, just as I had done in the Monastery, cleaving to the mortar as if the solidity would protect me and transh a tiny hole in the broken clu, and I beheld in the faht of lae brick stove

I knew theone from my mind I knew that they were kindred, and I knew the atmosphere that they shared

But I had to see beyond this little gathering I had to know if these people ell I had to know if after that fateful day, when I'd been kidnapped, and ed to go on with their usual vigor I had to know, perhaps, what they prayed when they thought of Andrei, the boy with the gift to make ikons so perfectly, ikons not made by human hands

I heard the harp inside, I heard singing The voice was that of one of ht have been my brother His naood with singing, hts and heroes, and it was one of the now The harp was ss in time with his phrases as he all but spoke the story of a lusty and fatal battle for ancient and great Kiev

I heard the familiar cadences that had been passed down by our people froers up and broke loose a bit ofthe Ikon corner-directly opposite the fa fire in the open stove

Ah, what a spectacle! Amid dozens of little candle stubs and earthen la fat, there stood propped soold frah only yesterday they'd cos stuffed as beautifully decorated and colored with patterns I could well recall, though even with my vampire eyes I was too far away to see the these sacred eggs for Easter, applying the hotwax to them with their wooden pens to mark the ribbons or the stars or the crosses or the lines which meant the ram's horns, or the symbol which meant the butterfly or the stork Once the wax had been applied, the egg would be dipped in cold dye of aly deep color It had seemed there was an endless variety, and endless possibility for ns

These fragile and beautiful eggs were kept for curing the sick, or for protection against the storood luck with the co harvest I had placed one once over the door of the house in whichbride