"Indeed," Pavlov nodded, "You can tell just by looking at the scenery, there's no other place with such beautiful grasslands, with such fertile black soil."
Wang Zhong nodded.
For so reason, looking at the grasslands under the afternoon sun, Wang Zhong suddenly felt a sense of lancholy.
Logically speaking, this was simply the holand of Count Aleksei Konstantinovich Rokossovsky, while Wang Zhong's own holand had no such vast grasslands, and the scenery was completely different.
Logically speaking, the outsider Wang Zhong should not feel lancholic for a re place na.
At that mont, Ludmila and Nelly ca down from the second carriage and stood by Wang Zhong.
Ludmila: "As a child, you were only not such a rascal when riding a horse."
"Eh?" Wang Zhong looked at his fiancée, "Really?"
"Yes, you would always let the reins go on horseback, letting the horse run on its own, then you'd spread your arms wide, feeling the wind like an idiot," she said.
Wang Zhong recalled for no particular reason the sensation of riding Bucephalus and sitting atop turret number 422.
Spreading your arms wide, embracing the wind like an idiot—indeed, it seed to be sowhat the case.
Suddenly, Wang Zhong jolted and turned to ask Nelly, "Did I... also used to love eating sour cream?"
Nelly affird with certainty, "Madly so, especially the one made by your deceased mother."
At that instant, a huge wave of sorrow, like a flood that had been building for a long ti, surged forward and took hold of Wang Zhong's heart.
Although he could rember nothing, neither racing across the fields nor the taste of his mother's sour cream, the tide of grief that passed through was overwhelmingly real.
Why this lancholy?
Because I am Aleksei Konstantinovich Rokossovsky, I was born here, I grew up here, and the milk of the black earth nourished .
Even if the mories are gone, even if the soul has been replaced by another, my body still rembers.
It rembers the wind here, everything here.
Struggling to keep his voice steady, Wang Zhong said, "Nelly, bring a lunchbox."
"A lunchbox?"
"Or so other tal box, one with a lid that's easy to carry."
Although Nelly looked puzzled, she turned and ran off.
Wang Zhong stepped forward, crossed the platform, jumped down, and landed on the black soil.
Nelly ca running back with the lunchbox: "Here you go!"
Wang Zhong grabbed the lunchbox, forcefully opened the lid, wedged it under his armpit, squatted down, and scooped up a handful of the black soil.
Nelly: "I'll get a shovel."
"No! No need," Wang Zhong stopped Nelly and continued plunging his hand into the fertile black earth, carefully placing the soil from this second holand into the tal box.
On the third handful, a startled cricket sprang out and leaped into the grass not far away.
Wang Zhong kept filling the lunchbox, handful after handful.
Mud packed under his fingernails and filled the lines of his fingerprints.
His hands looked like those of a child playing with mud, all dirty.
But everyone watched him in silence.
Ludmila's eyes even brimd with hot tears.
Grigori, carrying the red flag, stood silently on the platform.
Finally, Wang Zhong closed the lunchbox and pressed down hard. He squeezed out a smile for those around him: "Now, my holand will always be with ."
He looked up as if seeing the Kazarlian landscape for the first ti.
As if greedily wanting to imprint everything in his mind.
He rembered countless faces: the unnad elders of Karlinovka, the worker Loktov who rescued him from beneath the tank, the old lady Alexeyevna from number 43 Krugen Street...
In the end, Wang Zhong saw Crown Prince Ivan and "Old Man" Konstantin standing in the light, seemingly saying sothing.
They were saying "safe travels."
At that mont, the train's whistle startled Wang Zhong. He turned his head and saw the stifle cars full of young faces passing by on the opposite platform, heading in the direction Wang Zhong was leaving.
Ignoring the mud on his hands, Wang Zhong cupped his hands to his mouth to make a gaphone and shouted to the young faces: "Safe travels!"
The soldiers of the 151st Division shouted together: "Safe travels!"
The red flag, gifted by the workers of Shepetovka, fluttered in the wind.
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