Page:Chekhov - The Witch and Other Stories.djvu/301

290 The women looked at Nikolay's feet, shod in felt boots, and at his pale face, and said mournfully:

"You are not one to get on, Nikolay Osipitch; you are not one to get on! No, indeed!"

And they all made much of Sasha. She was ten years old, but she was little and very thin, and might have been taken for no more than seven. Among the other little girls, with their sunburnt faces and roughly cropped hair, dressed in long faded smocks, she with her white little face, with her big dark eyes, with a red ribbon in her hair, looked funny, as though she were some little wild creature that had been caught and brought into the hut.

"She can read, too," Olga said in her praise, looking tenderly at her daughter. "Read a little, child!" she said, taking the gospel from the corner. "You read, and the good Christian people will listen."

The testament was an old and heavy one in leather binding, with dog's-eared edges, and it exhaled a smell as though monks had come into the hut. Sasha raised her eyebrows and began in a loud rhythmic chant:

And the angel of the Lord appeared unto Joseph, saying unto him: Rise up, and take the Babe and His mother.

"The Babe and His mother," Olga repeated, and flushed all over with emotion.

And flee into Egypt, and tarry there until such time as

At the word "tarry" Olga could not refrain from tears. Looking at her, Marya began to whimper,