Then Arina Vlasyevna came up to him and leaning her grey head against his grey head, she said: “What can we do, Vasya? A son is a piece broken off. He’s like a falcon that flies home and flies away again when it wants; but you and I are like mushrooms growing in the hollow of a tree, we sit side by side without moving from the same place. Only I will never change for you, and you will always be the same for me.” Vassily Ivanovich took his hands from his face and embraced his wife, his friend, more warmly than he had ever embraced her in his youth; she comforted him in his sorrow.
