What Men Live By

Marya is another customer of Semyon’s. It turns out that she lived next door to the woman whose soul Mikhail was sent to take. Just a few days before the woman (Marya’s neighbor) gave birth, her husband died in an accident; then, the woman herself died in childbirth and in the process of dying crushed the leg of one of the newborns. Marya found her neighbor dead beside her newborn twins, and because Marya had her own infant at the same time, she was able to nurse and care for the babies in the days after their mother died. At first, Marya planned only to nurse the healthy baby, figuring that the twin with the crippled leg would die soon anyway. However, she later had a change of heart, deciding to nurse both twins. Marya’s biological son died as a toddler, which meant that the twins became her only children and the most important people in her life. Six years later, Marya comes with the twins to Semyon’s shop to buy them shoes. there, she relates the story of how the girls came to be under her care. Marya is so moved by her love for the twins that, as she tells the story, she begins to cry.