The little woodcutter's cottage of Nikolai lay deeply hidden in the great pine woods of Lower Serbia, miles from his nearest neighbor. Yet even in that wild country the fame of the intertwined children travelled far, and the wise old women from those parts came to see if herbs or chanting or any of their dark gifts might be of the least avail. They were no more useful than a real doctor who had studied at Belgrade, was practicing at Monastir, and was stimulated to great interest by the account of these strange children. The case defied all the arts of black or white magic, and the interest of the episode flickered and died down.
So it was that Nikolai reconciled himself to the inevitable, and as the boys grew older he would cross himself devoutly and say: "Thank God, it might have been a thousand times worse!" They were lads of extraordinary beauty. Peter and Ivan, he called them, Ivan being the lad who held so irrevocably the wrist of his brother within his fingers.

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