Of course, anyone would reassure a child, but here, in this solitary encounter, something quite different happened, as it were, and if I had been his own son, he could not have given me a look shining with more radiant love—and who made him do it? He was our own serf, and I was his little master; no one would learn how tender he had been with me and reward him for it.
Here he learned tenderness and how truly good man can be even if he is a brigand.
