"All fight's in vain: This time the green brass points pierce to my very brain. I fall--fall as I ought--quite on the babe I guard: I overspread with flesh the whole of him. Too hard To die this way, torn piecemeal? Move hence? Not I--one inch! Gnaw through me, through and through: flat thus I lie nor flinch! O God, the feel of the fang furrowing my shoulder!--see! It grinds--it grates the bone. O Kìrill under me, Could I do more? Besides he knew the wolf's way to win: I clung, closed round like wax: yet in he wedged and in, Past my neck, past my breasts, my heart, until ... how feels The onion-bulb your knife parts, pushing through its peels, Till out you scoop its clove wherein lie stalk and leaf And bloom and seed unborn?
"That slew me: yes, in brief, I died then, dead I lay doubtlessly till Droug stopped Here, I suppose. I come to life, I find me propped Thus,--how or when or why--I know not. Tell me, friends, All was a dream: laugh quick and say the nightmare ends! Soon I shall find my house: 't is over there: in proof, Save for that chimney heaped with snow, you'd see the roof Which holds my three--my two--my one--not one?
"Life 's mixed With misery, yet we live--must live. The Satan fixed His face on mine so fast, I took its print as pitch Takes what it cools beneath. Ivàn Ivànovitch, 'T is you unharden me, you thaw, disperse the thing! Only keep looking kind, the horror will not cling, Your face smooths fast away each print of Satan. Tears --What good they do! Life's sweet, and all its after-years, Ivàn Ivànovitch, I owe you! Yours am I! May God reward you, dear!"
Down she sank. Solemnly Ivàn rose, raised his axe,--for fitly as she knelt, Her head lay: well apart, each side, her arms hung,--dealt Lightning-swift thunder-strong one blow--no need of more! Headless she knelt on still: that pine was sound of core (Neighbors used to say)--cast-iron-kernelled--which Taxed for a second stroke Ivàn Ivànovitch.
The man was scant of words as strokes. "It had to be: I could no other: God it was, bade 'Act for me!'" Then stooping, peering round--what is it now he lacks? A proper strip of bark wherewith to wipe his axe, Which done, he turns, goes in, closes the door behind. The others mute remain, watching the blood-snake wind Into a hiding-place among the splinter-heaps.