And the Agarians took her and consumed her with fire, and from that time forth that people has been free. That was really a noble deed! But I—what have I done?"
I silently marveled a little as to whence, and under what aspect, the story of Joan of Arc had made its way hither. Then I asked Loukeria how old she was?
"Twenty-eight, or, perhaps, twenty-nine. At all events, not thirty. But why should I count my years? I will tell you something more "
All of a sudden, Loukeria coughed huskily, and uttered a kind of groan.
"You have talked a good deal," I said, "it may do you harm."
"That's true," she replied, in an almost inaudible whisper. "Our talk has come to an end. But, never mind. When you are gone, I shall be silent enough. At all events, I have had a little solace."
I rose to take leave, repeated my promise to-send her the medicine, and begged her once more to think over the matter, and let me know if there was anything she wanted.
"There is nothing that I want. I have plenty of everything, thank God!" she said, with deep feeling, but only by a considerable effort. "May God grant to all their health! But there is one thing, Barin, you might ask your mother. The peasants here are very poor. If she would only diminish their obligations a little. They have not enough land. As to wood and such-like things, they have none at all. They would pray to God on your behalf. But I need nothing. I have all that I want."
I took leave of Loukeria, after promising that I would see her request fulfilled. Just as I reached the door she called me back.
"Do you remember, Barin," she said,—a singular expression touching her eyes and lips—"do you remember what long hair I used to have, right down to my knees? It was a long time before I could make up my mind about it. But how could I keep it in proper order, in the state I am in? So, at last, I had it cut short. Yes—Well, goodbye, Barin. I cannot talk any more."
That same day, before going out shooting, I had a talk about Loukeria with the head of the hamlet. From him I learned that she bore the name among the villagers of "The Living Mummy," and that she never gave the least trouble to any one: neither murmur nor complaint was ever heard from her lips.
"She never asks for anything, but, on the other hand, she is grateful for everything. Very quiet-like, to be sure,—very quiet-like. God has smitten her,"—it was thus he concluded—"for her sins, no doubt. But we won't go into that. And as to condemning her, forsooth. No, no; we won't condemn her. Let her go free!"
A few weeks later, I heard that Loukeria was dead. Death had come for her in truth, and that, too, "after the St. Peter's Fast." They say that on the day of her death, she heard a constant ringing of church bells, though Alexievka is reckoned to be more than five versts from a church, and it was not a Sunday or Saint's day. Besides, Loukeria affirmed that the sound came, not from the church, but from "on high." She probably had not ventured to say that it came "from heaven."
CRAWFORD'S CONSISTENCY.
We were great friends, and it was natural that he should have let me know with all the promptness of his ardor that his happiness was complete. Ardor is here, perhaps, a misleading word, for Crawford's passion burned with a still and hidden flame; if he had written sonnets to his mistress's eyebrow, he had never declaimed them in public. But he was deeply in love; he had been full of tremulous hopes and fears, and his happiness, for several weeks, had hung by a hair—the extremely fine line that appeared to divide the yea and nay of the young lady's parents. The scale descended at last with their heavily-weighted consent in it, and Crawford gave himself up to tranquil bliss. He came to see me at my office—my name, on the little tin placard beneath my window, was garnished with an M. D., as vivid as new gilding could make it—long before that period of the morning at which my irrepressible buoyancy had succumbed to the teachings of experience (as it usually did about twelve o'clock), and resigned itself to believe that that particular day was not to be distinguished by the advent of the female form that haunted my dreams—the confiding old lady, namely, with a large account at the bank, and a mild, but expensive chronic malady. On that day I quite
