RUSSIANS LOVE THEIR CHILDREN TOO

It is a boy who approaches her first, a child who is young and fragile. Virgil?s eyes soften upon him maternally; she is without children so far into her season, without a man to warm her bed. She has always doted upon her little cousins, and now that she is within reach of possessing youth of her own, she has none to give them to her. Alas, she tries not to mourn it too much. The gods have their reasons, and if she is not meant to have children now, she is not meant to have them now.

The boys asks her what she is looking at, and she smiles. ?It is a Geyser. It spits water from Hades?s lair, and it is not to be touched by any. All those who touch its sinful waters turn into a craven, and then rot,? she says. She knows morbid stories fascinate boys, and she also knows that a scary story will keep the boy from stepping into the steaming water.