[A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections by Isabel Florence Hapgood]@TWC D-Link bookA Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections CHAPTER VIII 18/60
She, weeping bitterly, begs her "lord, her fair little red sun," to slay her or to listen to her, and she explains, that as she was coming home from Vespers she heard the snow crunching behind her, glanced round, and beheld a man running.
She covered herself with her veil, but the man seized her hands, bade her have no fear, and said that he was no robber, but the servant of the Terrible[17] Tzar, Kiribyeevitch, from the famous family of Maliuta, promised her her heart's desire--gold, pearls, bright gems, flowered brocades--if she would but love him, and grant him one embrace.
Then he caressed and kissed her, so that her cheeks are still burning, while the neighbors looked on, laughed, and pointed their fingers at her in scorn.
Tearing herself from his hands, she fled homewards, leaving in his hands her flowered kerchief (her husband's gift) and her Bokhara veil.
She entreats her husband not to give her over to the scorn of their neighbors, she is an orphan, her elder brother is in a foreign land, her younger brother still a mere child. Stepan Paramonovitch thereupon sends for his two younger brothers, but they send back a demand to know what has happened that he should require their presence on a dark, cold night.
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