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about assuming Father's work."
    To which he responded at once: "Ah, yes. Soon, when you have had a chance to
get over the dreadful shock. But not now. It is too soon to speak of business,
because you have just had another great shock."
    "No," I answered firmly, "the distraction would help me; and it would bring
me comfort to know I was fulfilling Father's wishes. He was quite concerned
that you and your affairs be taken care of."
    At this, V."s eyes misted. "Ah, your father was aptly named: Petru, the Rock.
Truly he was a rock to me, ever loyal and dependable. And you, Arkady - you must
know that I love Petru's children as my very own."
    He stated this with such warmth and conviction that I was seized by a welling
of affection for him. To be sure, he is odd and elderly, with strange habits,
but he has always been inordinately generous to our family. Despite his proud
demeanour, he cuts a pathetic figure, in a way. For all his wealth, he is so
lonely, so isolated, so utterly dependent upon my father… and now on me. I am
his one real link to the outside world.
    We spoke of business, then, which helped distance our thoughts from the recent
horror. Uncle promised to show me Father's office tomorrow evening, where all
the ledgers and bank books are kept, and bade me come earlier, so that I might
acquaint myself with the servants (whom, except for Laszlo the coachman, he
has never seen). It is apparently quite important that I speak with the foreman
and tour the fields, for Uncle has not the slightest inkling whether spring
planting has been arranged. He is indeed quite helpless.
    He was also quite keen to dictate a letter, which I wrote down in Roumanian
and then translated into English for a Mister Jeffries. V. seems desperate to
notify the visitor to come as quickly as possible, now that the funeral has
taken place; a recluse he might be, but one who is hungry for educated company
beyond that of his family. I offered to take the letter to Laszlo and tell him
to post it in Bistritz, as I would be passing by the servants’ quarters on my
way home, but V. folded up the letter without signing it, and said that he wished
to give Laszlo the instruction himself.
    And so I have taken my father's place. The meeting with Uncle was brief - I sensed
he was restless and eager for me to leave; I think my very presence made him
nervous to some degree. I mentioned, as I was leaving, my preoccupation with
wolves, and asked whether they still, as I remembered from childhood, constituted
a danger. V. said that this was indeed the case; and rather than have Laszlo
drive me home, he arranged for me to have a caleche and two horses for my very
own, so that I could be free to come and go without concern for the time of
day.
    And so I left, feeling much calmer than when I had arrived. But driving home
in the caleche, I passed by the family tomb. Though the darkness hid the unspeakable
horror there, the grief and rage and sense of violation all struck me once again.
    How can I bear to live among these people, knowing the atrocities of which
they are capable?
    * * *
    The Journal of Mary Windham Tsepesh
    7 April, (later entry)
    This afternoon I attempted once again to engage my chambermaid, Dunya, in conversation.
Like most of the peasant women here she is small of build but strong. Like them,
she wears the white double apron and beneath it a rather immodest coarse linen
dress that fails to cover her ankles and is altogether revealing when the light
catches it the right way. The peasants here seem to have a cavalier attitude
towards the wearing of undergarments.
    Dunya's colouring is fair and her dark, almost black hair has a reddish cast
when the sunlight catches it. This, and her name, makes me believe she is at
least partly Russian. She cannot be more than sixteen, but seems intelligent
and thoughtful, although she displays the same reluctance as the other servants
to