Page:Leonid Andreyev - Silence (Brown, 1910).djvu/19

 one window hung an empty wire cage, with the door open.

"Nastasya!" shouted Father Ignatius, and his voice seemed to him coarse, and he felt ill at ease because he raised his voice so high in these silent rooms, so soon after his daughter's funeral. "Nastasya!" he called out in a lower tone of voice, "where is the canary?"

"She flew away, to be sure."

"Why did you let it out?"

Nastasya began to weep, and wiping her face with the edges of her calico headkerchief, said through her tears:

"It was my young mistress's soul. Was it right to hold it?" And it seemed to Father Ignatius that the yellow, happy little canary, always singing with inclined head, was really the soul of Vera, and if it had not flown away it wouldn't have been possible to say that Vera had died. He became even more incensed at the maid-servant, and shouted:

"Off with you!"

And when Nastasya did not find the door at once he added:

"Fool!"