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Hide and Seek

Fiodor Sologub

Overview I II III IV V VI VII VIII

V

Lelechka was about to fall asleep. No sooner had she climbed into her
little bed, protected by a network on all sides, than her eyes began
to close from fatigue. Her mother covered her with a blue blanket.
Lelechka drew her sweet little hands from under the blanket and
stretched them out to embrace her mother. Her mother bent down.
Lelechka, with a tender expression on her sleepy face, kissed her
mother and let her head fall on the pillow. As her hands hid
themselves under the blanket Lelechka whispered: "The hands
tiu-tiu!"

The mother's heart seemed to stop—Lelechka lay there so small, so
frail, so quiet. Lelechka smiled gently, closed her eyes and said
quietly: "The eyes tiu-tiu!"

Then even more quietly: "Lelechka tiu-tiu!"

With these words she fell asleep, her face pressing the pillow. She
seemed so small and so frail under the blanket that covered her. Her
mother looked at her with sad eyes.

Serafima Aleksandrovna remained standing over Lelechka's bed a long
while, and she kept looking at Lelechka with tenderness and fear.

"I'm a mother: is it possible that I shouldn't be able to protect
her?" she thought, as she imagined the various ills that might befall
Lelechka.

She prayed long that night, but the prayer did not relieve her
sadness.