“Let us drink half a quarter over this sorrow!”
The organ was playing continually. The women began to be somewhat tender. Kulik repeated, with a voice of compassion, “Poor little thing! poor little thing!” and the second old woman called to mind the death of her late husband.
“When he was dying,” said she, “he sighed so, oh, he sighed so, he sighed so!—” and drawling still more, her voice passed into a chant, from a chant into the tone of the organ, till at last she bent to one side, and in following the organ began to sing,—
“He sighed, he sighed, he sighed, On that day he sighed.”
All at once she fell to shedding hot tears, gave the organist six groshes, and drank some more vodka. Kulik, too, was excited by tenderness, but she turned it on Marysia,—
“Remember, little orphan,” said she, “what the priest said when they were covering thy mother with snow, that there is a yamyol [an angel] above thee—” Here she stopped, looked around as if astonished, and then added, with unusual energy, “When I say that there is a yamyol, there _is_ a yamyol!”
No one contradicted her. Marysia, blinking with her poor, simple eyes, looked attentively at the woman. Kulik spoke on,—
“Thou art a little orphan, that is bad for thee! Over orphans there is a yamyol. He is good. Here are ten groshes for thee. Even if thou wert to start on foot to Leschyntsi, thou couldst go there, for he would guide thee.”
“In the shade of his wings he will keep thee eternally, Under his pinions thou wilt lie without danger.”
“Be quiet!” said Kulik. And then she turned again to the child,—
“Knowest thou, stupid, who is above thee?”
“A yamyol,” said, with a thin voice, the little girl.
“Oh, thou little orphan, thou precious berry, thou little worm of the Lord! A yamyol with wings,” said she, with perfect tenderness, and seizing the child she pressed her to her honest, though tipsy, bosom.
Marysia burst into weeping at once. Perhaps in her dark little head and in her heart, which knew not yet how to distinguish, there was roused some sort of perception at that moment.
The innkeeper was sleeping most soundly behind the counter; on the candle-wicks mushrooms had grown; the man at the organ ceased to play, for what he saw amused him.