United States or Ecuador ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
At that moment the old man cried, "Agafia, with whom are you speaking?" And ere I could bethink me, he was close to me, aiming a stroke with his swung staff at me which would have cleft my skull in two had not Agafia seized me from behind and drawn me quickly away. The staff splintered into a thousand pieces on the stone bench. The old man fell on his knees.
The cold, dim morning light, the raw air pervading the almost empty church, the very secrecy of those unexpected excursions, the cautious return home to bed all that combination of the forbidden, the strange, the holy, thrilled the young girl, penetrated to the inmost depths of her being. Agafia never blamed any one, and she never scolded Liza for any childish faults.
She and Agafia were never apart. It was curious to see them together. Agafia, all in black, with a dark handkerchief on her head, her face emaciated and of a wax-like transparency, but still beautiful and expressive, would sit erect on her chair, knitting stockings.
Oh, heavens, if only that Master of the Rolls that Lindhorst hadn't been there! Popowicz of course wanted to kill me, but the Dolphin sprinkled marvellous life-balsam out of its silver-blue nostrils. And Agafia!" When he spoke this name, Anselmus was wont to get up from his seat, jump just a little, once, twice, three times; and then sit down again.
Over Liza she had but little influence. All the more powerful, then, was the influence exercised over the child by her nurse, Agafia Vlasievna. That woman's story was a remarkable one. She sprang from a family of peasants, and was married at sixteen to a peasant; but she stood out in sharp relief against the mass of her peasant sisters.
"Michael Popowicz! Michael Popowicz! Do you not see the fireman?" The old man murmured to himself. He seemed to be praying. But suddenly he cried out, "Agafia!" And at that moment his face glowed in blood-red fire which seemed to be shooting up at him out of the Elbe.
Her husband, for whom she had obtained a place as footman, took to drink, began to absent himself from the house, and ended by stealing half-a-dozen of his mistress's silver spoons and hiding them, till a fitting opportunity should arise for carrying them off in his wife's box. The theft was found out. He was turned into a herdsman again, and Agafia fell into disgrace.
It was always quite useless to ask him what he really meant, on the whole, by those extraordinary sayings and grimaces. He merely answered, "Can I possibly describe what happened with Popowicz and Agafia without being supposed to be out of my mind?" And every one would laugh gently, as much as to say, "Well, my good fellow, we suppose that whether or not."
When Kalitine married Maria Dmitrievna, he wanted to entrust the care of his household to Agafia; but she refused, "on account of temptation." He began to scold her, but she only bowed low and left the room. The shrewd Kalitine generally understood people; so he understood Agafia's character, and did not lose sight of her.
She was not dismissed from the house, but she was degraded from the position of housekeeper to that of a needle-woman, and she was ordered to wear a handkerchief on her head instead of a cap. To every one's astonishment, Agafia bore the punishment inflicted on her with calm humility. By this time she was about thirty years old, all her children were dead, and her husband soon afterwards died also.
Word Of The Day