Hryhoriy Kvitka Marusa

22 father and mother and went to the groom’s house in the country where the wedding festivities were held.

Ah! How light Marusia’s heart became! Now there would not be a witness of her intimacy with Vasil.

When she came home it was burdensome to her to have to lie to her mother about the berries. She never had lied in all her life before, and she did not know how to carry it off.

Well, she mentioned the herd and Olena – “and this way and that way she hid the ants in the water.”

When she was working around the house and was with her mother she was joyful, especially since the latter felt better and had risen from her bed. Her father also was in a good humor; so not only did she not grieve, but she thanked her good fortune that she had acted as she did, and had not allowed Vasil to see her. And walking about at her tasks she always thought: “Oh, may time go more swiftly, so that I may tell them everything about Vasil, and then sin will go from my soul!”

When she lay on her bed, she could not induce sleep to come. At once Vasil came into her thoughts – no doubt he was grieving that he would not be able to see her soon. If she did not see Vasil for one week – or two – God save her! What in the world would she do?

“Yesterday,” she thought to herself, “I did not know how much I should love him today.

After that time when he told me he loved me – Oh, how he kissed! – “ and then she became so ashamed over the thought of that night that she felt her cheeks flaming.

“Oh, what did I do!” she thought. “Is it really I myself who never wanted to hear anything about boys? Oh, I would rather sink through the earth from shame! .... Suppose Vasil only mocked me?” And at this thought her cheeks burned even more.

But thinking about it all, she came to the conclusion that Vasil was not the kind of man to do a thing like that – to mock her when he swore he loved her so much; and then she felt more peaceful. Only she still wished that she had not kissed him nor lingered with him in the woods.

“But,” she thought, “it is the first and last time. It is Love that has attacked me, and Mother says that Love is like a dream. You cannot get rid of it by eating or sleeping or working; what you are doing you don’t know, as it is in a dream.

“O Mother of God, protect me, so that I may not do something worse! But if I do not see him, then there will be no one with whom to make merry.... I did very well after all, and I should be thankful that I forbade Vasil to visit me.”

Taking counsel with herself in this way she arose, because it was already dawn, and began to do the morning duties. She milked the cow, but watched all the time to see if Vasil might be coming; she went to fetch water, and there, too, she thought Vasil might be approaching.

While she was beating salted bacon in a mortar with a pestle she kept her eyes on the door, thinking that perhaps the next moment Vasil would open it. She set the table for dinner, but peeped out of the window to see if he was coming.

So she was waiting – and not waiting; one moment she wished that he would come, the next she was afraid, and did not want him to come.

After dinner, sitting in the hut, she thought: “Oh, I wish he would not come in! I will go into the yard in case he does.” When she went into the yard she thought again: “I wish he were not likely to walk in the street – he might see me – I’ll go back to the house.”

So in this way she found the whole world irksome and disagreeable in the daylight hours, and in the night she slept little. All the time she wondered and wondered when she would see Vasil, and when the time would come when there would be no need for parting.

And Vasil was no better than she. He not only neglected his work but left his master and the town, and all the time he was wandering around the village where Marusia lived. He