Page:Kalevala (Kirby 1907) v1.djvu/304

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Long ago has died thy father,

Perished has thy sweetest mother,

All estranged is now thy brother,

And his wife is like a Russian.’

“But I let it not distress me,

And at once the house I entered,

At the door I grasped the handle,

Cold within my hand I felt it.

“After, when the room I entered,

In the doorway I was standing,

And the mistress stood there proudly,

But she did not come to meet me,

Nor to me her hand she offered.

I myself was proud as she was,

And I would not go to meet her,

And my hand I would not offer.

On the stove my hand I rested.

Cold I felt the very hearthstones,

To the burning coals I reached it;

In the stove the coals were frozen.

“On the bench there lay my brother,

Lazy on the bench extended,

On his shoulders soot by fathoms,

And by spans upon his body,

On his head glowed coals a yard high,

And of hard-caked soot a quartful.

“Asked my brother of the stranger,

Of the guest he thus inquired:

‘Stranger, why hast crossed the water?’

“And on this I gave him answer:

‘Dost thou then not know thy sister,

Once the daughter of thy mother?

We are children of one mother,

Of one bird are we the nestlings:

By one goose have we been nurtured,

In one grouse’s nest been fostered.’

“Then my brother broke out weeping,

From his eyes the tears were falling.

“To his wife then said my brother,

And he whispered to his darling,