Page:Taras Bulba. A Tale of the Cossacks. 1916.djvu/152

146 which sifted through a crack in the shutters fell upon some objects,—a crimson curtain, a gilded cornice, a painting on the wall. The Tatár motioned to Andríi to wait here, and opened the door into another room, from which gleamed the light of a fire. Through the open door he beheld, rapidly flitting past, a tall female figure, with a splendid braid of hair falling over her uplifted arm. The Tatár returned and bade him enter.

He was never able to remember how he entered, and how the door was shut behind him. Two candles burned in the room, and a shrine-lamp glowed before a holy picture: beneath it stood a small but lofty table, with steps to kneel upon during prayer, after the Roman Catholic fashion. He turned in the other direction, and perceived a woman, who seemed to have congealed and turned to stone in the midst of some rapid movement. It seemed as though her whole form had been trying to spring towards him, and had suddenly paused. And, amazed, he stood in like manner before her. Not thus had he pictured to himself that he would see her: this was not the person whom he had formerly known; nothing about her resembled that person: but she was twice as beautiful, twice as wonderful now as she had formerly been. Then there had been something unfinished, incomplete about her: now it was a production to