The way Alfred looked at him after the Revolution was like salt in his wounds, which still bled sometimes as skirmishes broke out between the Reds and the remaining White forces, or sometimes with Kulaks in the countryside. He lay awake at night as the pain wracked his body and thought of the coldness in those blue eyes that had once regarded him with such warmth. He had no idea that the boy could even be that cold, his eyes biting into him like Arctic winds.
For months afterwards he would search them out, looking for warmth and finding hatred.