Perhaps to people who have never had children it seems that all babies are exactly alike: they understand nothing, and all they do know is how to cry, shout and get in the way of their elders. That, of course, is not true. I am sure that I could have recognized my daughter among a thousand other newly-born babies, that her face had its own special expression, that there was something very special about her eyes, that her voice was quite different from any other. I could have watched for hours, if there had only been time, how she slept, how in her sleep she would pull her little hand out of the blanket in which I had wrapped her up tightly, how she would open her eyes and look straight before her, from under those long, thick eyelashes.
And then — it was wonderful! — each day began to bring something new, and it dawned on me that the child was really growing and changing, and "not from day to day, but from hour to hour." Now the little girl even in the midst of the very loudest crying would stop when she heard someone's voice. Now she would begin to catch even the softest of sounds and turn her head towards the ticking of the clock. Now she would begin to transfer her glance from her father to me, to Grandma, and to Uncle Fedya (that was how after Zoya's birth we jokingly called Anatoly Petrovich's twelve-year-old brother). The day came when my little girlie began to recognize me — that was a good and happy day and one I shall always remember. I bent over the cradle. Zoya looked at me attentively, thought a little and suddenly smiled. Everybody assured me that this smile had no real meaning to it, that children of that age will smile at one and all, but I knew it was not so!
Zoya was a tiny thing. I bathed her often. In the village they said bathing would make a child grow more quickly. She was out in the open a lot, and although the winter was coming on she slept outdoors with her face uncovered. Careful not to spoil the child we would never pick her up without a reason — that was the counsel of my mother and my mother-in-law, Lydia Fyodorovna. I obediently followed their advice; and it was perhaps because of this that Zoya slept soundly through the nights, without demanding to be rocked or nursed. She grew up very calm and quiet. Sometimes Uncle Fedya would come up to her and, standing over the cradle, would plead: "Zoya, say: Un-ky! Go on! Say: Ma-ma, and Pa-pa!"
His pupil would smile broadly and burble something quite unintelligible. But alter a time she actually did begin to repeat, at first uncertainly and then more and more firmly, "Papa," "Mama."…I remember her next word after "Mama" and "Papa" was the strange word "Ap." She was standing on the floor, a wee little thing, then suddenly stood up on her toes and said, "Ap!" As we guessed later, this was her way of saying: "Take me up!"
Next: The Bitter Year