"How
could it happen to you?"
"Well, supposing the revolutionists took control, and then--"
"Supposing! Supposing the sky should fall," he interrupted, and smiled
on his lovely and delicate Vera.
IV
Silly Peter refused to eat the bowl of soup that Luba placed out for
him, but he went aloft in the barn and cried in his dull, monotonous
tone: "I don't want a grave--I don't want a grave," until he fell
asleep.
Then over his simple, slumbering brain came a vision.
He saw himself standing on an elevated place and over him rested the
great ultramarine dome of sky. About him he could see the horizon as
though it were a white circle of foam.
Gradually this circle grew smaller and smaller and rose up like a
sparkling and living halo. As it came nearer, he discovered that the
circle was composed of hundreds of white doves.
Soon they were close over him encircling the elevation on which he
stood, and he could hear the wild beating of the wings as though they
were rolling a tattoo on muffled drums. Then suddenly the circle broke,
and rose like a puff of smoke against a sky of blue.
With startling rapidity it rose until it rent and perforated the sky,
and was lost from sight. Only a large oval opening of light-grey
nothingness remained overhead--a hole in the sky--an opening to heaven.
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