From the highway of Staroye Shosse where we lived it was no less than three kilometres to school.
I used to get up first, prepare breakfast, feed the children, and we would leave the house while it was still lark. Our path lay through Timiryazev Park. The trees stood tall and still, just as if they had been drawn in India ink against a blue, slowly brightening background. The snow crunched under our feet, and our breath would leave a fine sprinkling of hoarfrost on the fur collars of our coats.
The three of us used to go together—Anatoly Petrovich left the house later. At first we would walk along in silence, but gradually all traces of sleepiness would melt away with the darkness, and some unexpected and interesting conversation would begin.
"Mummy," asked Zoya once, "why is it that the older trees grow the more beautiful they become, but when people grow old they are not beautiful at all?"
'That's not true!" retorted Shura hotly before I could think of an answer. "There's Granny, she's old, but isn't she beautiful? She certainly is!"
Mother…No, no one would call you beautiful now: your eyes are so tired, your cheeks so lined and hollow. But Shura seems to overhear my thoughts and says with deep conviction:
"Any person I love is beautiful for me."
"Yes, that's true," says Zoya after some thought.
Once when the three of us were walking together along the highway a lorry overtook us and pulled up suddenly.
"Going to school?" asked the driver, looking out at us.
"Yes," I answered, surprised.
"Well, tell the kids to hop in."
I had hardly time to look round before Zoya and Shura were in the back, and to the accompaniment of their delighted shouts the lorry moved on.
From that day right until the spring the same lorry always overtook us on the road, picked up the children and took them almost all the way to school. They would jump out at the corner and the lorry would drive on farther.
We never used to wait for "our lorry." We liked to hear behind us the sound of the familiar low hooter, and the same deep voice say, "Well, hop in, kids." Of course the route of the kindly driver simply coincided with ours, but the children liked to believe that he came for us on purpose.
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