Ivan put down on the table a bowl of kasza and milk, laid beside it a piece of white bread, and then he turned and left the hut.

I

I ate a little of what he had brought me; then I took up a spade and followed my mother to the potato-field. On the field I found Ivan with my mother. did not even say to them, "God give you luck," as we always say, but quite silently I began to dig up potatoes, and they too were silent towards me.

In the evening Ivan went to fetch a cart for carrying the potatoes home. There were five sackfuls, and they were large and heavy. The thought came into my mind "How good it would be to seize the heaviest of those sacks, to strain myself and die!" To-day I know that that thought was wrong; but then I did not think so, and God will assuredly not have counted it as evil, for He knew that my great pain had darkened my understanding.

I took hold of the largest sack, and with all my strength I flung it on the cart.

Ivan wrung his hands; and then, moving aside, he bent quickly over the next sack, and shook it out, so that all the potatoes were spilt over the ground.

I turned and went home through the village. Ivan's hut stood on my road, but I looked away as I passed it, and walked straight to the hut of my parents. Then I drank a little cold milk, and, shutting myself up as before, I went to sleep.

As the days passed, my life remained the same as it had been

before my marriage. Ivan said not a word; he did not grow angry, and he did not allow that my father should be angry with me. Every morning he came to the hut and helped in the household; he worked

in the garden and in the fields; he settled all difficulties; he watched over my parents. It was always Ivan who took care that there should be salt in the salt-box, and grease in the grease-tub.

I also was forced to work, for my mother had grown feeble. Often I arranged the household matters together with Ivan; and often, too, we went together to herd the cattle; but never once did he remind me that we were man and wife.

In this way the winter came. Of my Fedio there had been no word of news; and yet his image, instead of growing fainter, always grew stronger in my heart. In the evening, after I had said my last prayer, after the thought of God there still came the thought of Fedio; and in the morning, when scarcely my eyes were opened, before the thought of God there came again the thought of Fedio. The good God was not angry with me for this; for the love that was in my heart, it was He Himself who had put it there.

Then came the spring, and again the work began in the fields. My parents had got used to the state of things, and no longer treated me unkindly; but now it was Ivan who was beginning to lose patience. Once in the evening, as I returned alone from the fields, he was standing at the door of his own hut. I was passing without speaking, but he caught me by the hand, and in a voice I had never heard before, so hoarse and choking, he said,—

"Marysia, tell me, how long is this to last?"

I tore my hand away, and running home I fastened the door behind me, and sank down trembling on my knees.

Another time-it was Sunday evening, and the sun was sinking slowly--I was sitting on the bench

before the hut; Ivan came and sat down beside me. He did not speak, he only looked at me for long; then he put his arm round me and bent forward to kiss me. Again I turned from him, and, tearing myself free, I left him alone on the bench.

That evening Ivan went to the village inn to drink. He spent half the night there; and next day, for the first time, I heard him speak harshly to my old father, and saw him push my little brother roughly aside.

In the weeks that followed, the work of the farm no longer progressed. Ivan was not the same: he did not care to put his hand to the plough; his pleasure in the cattle and in the fields was gone; he was often flushed and excited, his hand shook, his voice grew unsteady. And yet my conscience did not speak; it seemed to be lying dead within me. In the selfishness of my own misery I was walking blindfolded. But there came a day when the bandage fell.

I had been at work in the fields, and was coming home alone, for Ivan had not shown himself all day. It was dark as I came slowly along the road. As always, I was thinking of Fedio of our last words, the last look he had given me, of the despair that had been in his face, of our kisses and tears; and in the middle of these thoughts my foot stumbled against something on the road. I saw a white form on the ground,—a man was lying straight across my path. I lifted his head. It was Ivan, my husband, and he was lying in a drunken sleep! Ivan, the sober steady Ivan, the careful farmer, the model of the village, and now stretched in the dust like a common drunkard! was it I who had made him into this?

That night I did not sleep; but

all the dark hours I spent in bitter tears, and for the first time I had another thought than Fedio.

Next day the priest sent for Ivan and me, and he told me all those things again which my heart had been telling me all night. I cannot remember all he said to me; but then he took us to the church, and prayed with us before the altar, and, laying the book of Gospels upon my head, he read aloud out of it, and sprinkled the holy water over us, and then he blessed us, and sent us away together.

us

A year later the great God gave

a son; but he only lived for four Sundays. In the second year a daughter was born; this one lived for half a year, and after that she also died. In the same month my mother was taken from us. You know, gracious lady, how much the burying costs: these losses were hard for us; and besides, the harvest was a poor one. After that we had another girl, and then a boy. These lived longer. The girl grew to be five years old, and the boy three, and they were so beautiful-as beautiful as the children of great lords. Then they both died in one week; and there wanted but little that I should have gone mad. I thought to myself that this was my punishment for not being able to forget Fedio. Children had been born and had died, my mother had been taken from me, harvests had ripened and had failed, and yet never for one minute did the thought of Fedio leave my mind. It was eight years now since he had gone; those who had become soldiers with him were back already. And the people told me that he must be dead; but I felt that he was alive. I knew that he had not died—that he could not die until my eyes had seen him again, until my hand had held his,

and we had looked in each other's faces.

Ivan was so good a husband to me, that I have no words how to tell it; and though harvests were bad, he let me want for nothing. I had white bread to eat when even the richest peasants in the village did not as much as see black bread in their huts. In the evening, when he came home from work, he would kiss my hands and my feet. He would beg me, with tears in his eyes, not to work, but to take my ease and rest, for he always kept a servant for me; and if I had chosen, I need never have put a finger to the labour. I had the heaviest corals in the village, and the newest aprons to wear, the brightest flowers in my garden! And yet, in the middle of all this, there came over me moments when my life was unbearable-when, if I had but known where Fedio was, I should have left my husband and children to go to him.

Once Ivan brought me back from the fair a new Blessed Virgin to hang up in the hut; for the old one, which had belonged to my mother, was getting shabby. This one had a beautiful pink face, and a red and green dress, and a blue cloak with yellow roses, and there was a glittering gold frame all round it. I knew that it had cost Ivan many kreutzers to buy it; yet when I said my prayers before that picture, it was not for him that I prayed.

When, therefore, my two children died in one week, I thought this was God's doing; and yet, though I did not dare to pray for it, God gave me another son-and this one was more beautiful than any of the children I had lost. When it was but a few hours old, Ivan, taking it in his arms, sat down on the edge of my bed, and looked long at the child; then he slowly shook his

head, and with tears in his eyes he said,

"What a pity if it also should die as the others have died!"

Many times before this, when I was near to becoming mother, I had thought that were the child to be a son, I should like to give him that name which was to me the dearest name on earth; but the courage had always failed me to speak to Ivan of this. At this moment the old wish came over me again like a burning thirst, and without pausing to think, I spoke,

"Call the child as he was called; with his name it must live!"

Ivan did not understand me at once; he did not seem to know of whom I spoke, for certainly he believed that I had forgotten that other one long ago.

"Whose name him?" he asked.

am I to give

"Fedio!" I answered.

It was many, oh very many years since my voice had spoken that name; and now as I heard it again, even though it was myself who had said it, I felt my heart grow sore and the tears rise to my eyes. I put my hand up, that Ivan should not see those tears; for they would have hurt the man who for so long had been to me an angel upon earth.

He put back the child beside me, bent down and kissed me, and without a word he left the

room.

A little later he came back with the godparents. They took the child from me, and carried it to church.

The church stood at the far end of the village. I had to wait long before they returned. All the time they were away, I asked myself whether they would indeed give the boy the name after which I thirsted. It seemed to me that

with another name I could not love him.

At last they came.

Ivan took the child from the arms of the godmother, and laid it beside me on the pillow.

"Fedio is his name, and may God let him grow up!"

And the great, good God took the sacrifice which Ivan had made. His blessing was on this child. The boy thrived like running water, and the name which for so long had been unspoken between us was now heard daily in our hut and garden.

The years ran on and brought us a daughter, who also lived. Ivan began to talk of building a new hut. He cut the wood and prepared the thatch all day he was busy with his new plan.

I remember that it was on a Monday. Ivan, as usual, was working at the new hut, the children ran out to the garden to play, and I went down to the pond with the linen to wash. It was springtime already; but though the weather was dry, I began to feel chilled after I had washed for two

hours at the pond. Going back to the hut, I sat myself down beside the stove.

As I sat thus idle, my thoughts took their old weary round. "Where was Fedio now? Was he happy? Had he one true heart beside him?" And the tears ran down my cheeks.

It was always this way with me when I sat thus idle on Sundays or on feast-days, for in the week I had no time for tears; but today, though it was only a workday, yet as I leant quite still beside the stove, the old thoughts and the old tears came back.

While I was sitting thus, the door opened, and there stood in the room Fedio's sister.

I do not know why, though I

saw that woman every day, though she had very often entered this same door in just this same way, -I do not know why it was that, seeing her now, I sprang up from the bench and called out,

"Fedio! What has happened to him? Has he written? Has he been seen?

"No; nothing has happened, and he has not written: he is here himself—he is in my hut-and he waits for you."

My heart began to beat so loud that I could hear it throbbing. In a moment I forgot everything -husband, children, everything, everything that was. Without taking a minute to think, I ran straight out of the hut. Happily it was a Monday, and therefore my shirt was quite white. I had on a striped petticoat, a blue handkerchief on my head, and my corals round my neck. And he had not seen me for so many years! I was eighteen when he left me, and eighteen years had passed since then; and these two eighteens made me near forty. It was lucky that after so many years he should see me in a new petticoat and with my corals on. But all this I only thought of later. While I ran towards the hut, I had no thought at all; it seemed to me only that I should never have done running, that the hut was running away from before me, and my breath began to grow short. I reached the yard, the threshold; I opened the door, but then I could go no farther my forces failed me. saw him. He stood in lancer uniform, with his back towards me, holding his hands to the

stove.

I

At the noise of the opening door he turned, and running forward with a great cry, he took me in his arms: his head sank down upon my shoulder, so that my lips

just touched his hair. And then he began to laugh-quite softly at first, then louder, louder, louder, till I grew frightened. It was so strange that laugh, that it seemed to hurt my shoulder. In the first moment I had been stunned, but that terrible laugh aroused me. I cried out, "Water, water!"

His sister came running to us: we tried to make him sit down, but his hands were so tightly clasped on my dress that we could not open them. Then we poured water over him: he grew quieter, and listened to me while I spoke.

"My Fedio, my dearest, try to be quiet. I am your Marysia. God has allowed us to meet again.” And with every word he grew calmer he sat down on the bench, and I beside him.

He did not ask me why I had married, nor when, nor if I had children,—nothing of all this did he ask me then. He only told me that he had wanted to see me, once more to embrace me; that he would not die, though his life was very dark, but that he would go out again into the world, and this time never to return.

"No, Fedio-no, my beloved, do not leave the village, for then at least I can, if only sometimes if only from far off,-I can rest my eyes on you!"

"Marysia! It is true, then, what they tell me; it is true, then, that you have not forgotten me?"

Through my tears I told him that it was true; and in that moment it seemed to me that we were both young again, he a youth of twenty, I a maiden of eighteen!

"I must go," I said to Fedio ; "Ivan is waiting for his dinner."

And I left the hut. He did not try to stop me, but he rose also and followed me out, through the yard, and across the yard to the gate. I thought he would turn back here, but he did not; he came after me on to the road. At this I was frightened-not for me, but for him. I begged him to leave me. He answered me that he could not. I stood still and implored him to go, so that Ivan might not see us there walking together.

Why not? Does he not know that, whether I be far or near, I always love you?"

"And that is why, because he knows, he will kill you."

"Let him kill me! this life is wearisome."

"Fedio!" I cried, and I felt the fire flash to my eyes. "He will not kill you alone. He will put the knife first into you, and then into me-remember that, and do not take my death on your conscience, for I have two small children?"