"A joy, that you are kind. You think them long-sighted or desperate, instead of petty, cruel, and ill-inclined to give persons like my mother, my father, and myself anything other than the firing squad. To them, I was only human on the inhuman merit I displayed; how much less my mother and father?"

She shook her head. "As to what they meant for me... Five years in Kamchatka, that became increasingly desperate. Despite my assessments, they kept me from the front. I... To this day, cannot explain why."