A New Generation
CHRISTOPH’S CHILDREN LIVED IN a world much different from the realm their parents inhabited at first. Their souls were not torn apart by pictures of Germany, of Hessen, lingering mild and fruitful, orderly and studious in their minds. Raised and living in the wildness of the Russian steppe, they resembled in spirit and behavior more the tough Kalmyks and Kirghiz than the thoughtful, placid Germans from whom they stemmed.
They had adapted to Russia’s illnesses and developed antigens against them, which strengthened their immune systems. They could tolerate twice the cold their elders could endure; they seemed impervious to draughts and floods and had found ways to combat wolves and criminal outcasts.
This was their land. It had been purchased with the sweat, the blood and the bodies of their kind, and they meant to live in it freely and fully.
Never having been a part of the German villages, they looked upon the Volga, the few minor hills and the vast grasslands, with loving eyes, calling its vastness home, mother. Christoph’s brood laughed when the freezing breath emanated from the depth of Siberia. They welcomed the frosts and the snow – less work and more fun.
Snow and frost meant that the ground grew solid. One could harness a troika to a sleigh and race twenty kilometers to a christening, a wedding or a church feast, meeting young people from other families, other areas.
“Why is it, Father, that the girls in other villages look so much better than ours here in Norka?” asked Paul after a few such excursions.
Christoph understood his question perfectly. As a young man he had found the same thing to be true, and so he explained without hesitation. “The girls you grew up with are too familiar, you know them too well. There is excitement in discovery. But do not forget that that which we know is comfortable, dependable, and the other can be frightening, uncertain and insecure. However, my son, you must choose and I trust you will choose well.”
Encouraged thus, Paul continued his visits to other villages. One of his favorite villages was Walter, about thirty kilometers away. Perhaps what pulled him so strongly to the bank of the Medveditsa were dark eyes and dark tresses, framing the white clear skin of a girl’s face.