Summary

A few months after the narrator clears up his dilemma with syphilis, the narrator’s mother visits him in Bulgaria. They are traveling on a train and sharing a car with a child and his grandmother. He is instantly drawn to the boy, but he soon realizes that his attraction is to due to the boy’s likeness to Mitko. The grandmother is kind and patient with the boy, allowing him to express his discomfort on the long train ride. The adults on the train are all entertained by the behavior of the young boy, which then encourages him to act out even more. As the boy begins to shift from activities to misbehavior, the grandmother scolds him. This causes the boy to react with an over-the-top charm in the form of a fake begging posture. This begging gesture reminds...