“Who told you my name? Who are you? Are you my sister Olga? Do you remember the merry-go-round at the school-feast in Kieff? How we cried when it swung us round and round and round and would not stop? I seem to be still on the merry-go-round, rushing along, hastening, hurrying with the loud music pealing in my head.”
The Mother Superior rose and approached her. “Hush,” she spoke in soothing tones. “You will soon be quiet and at rest.”
But Marie Tarnowska paid no heed. Her eyes were still fixed on mine with a despairing gaze. “Wake me, wake me!” she cried. “And let me tell you my dream.”
And during those long mild April days she told it to me as follows.
Where shall I begin? Wait, let me think—ah, yes! Where I fell asleep that day in the garden, on the swing. I remember it was a hot day even in Otrada; almost as hot as it is here. And it was my birthday; I was sixteen years old. My mother herself, with great solemnity, in the presence of my father and sisters, had twisted up my long curling hair and pinned it in great waves and coils on the top of my head. There were to be no more long plaits hanging down my back!
“Your childhood is over, Mura,” said my mother. “At sixteen one has to look and behave like a grown-up young lady.”
“That is exactly what I am, mother dear,” I replied with great self-assurance.
My mother smiled and sighed and kissed me. “You are such a child—such a child still, my little snowdrop,” she said, and her eyes were tender and anxious.
But I ran gaily out into the garden, feeling very proud of my red-gold helmet of curls. I sprang fearlessly on the swing, tossing my head from side to side, delighted to feel the back of my neck cool and uncovered to the breeze. What would Vassili say to see me like this! But soon the hairpins felt heavy; they pulled a hair or two here, and a hair or two there, and hurt me. I stopped the swing, and with my head bent forward I quickly drew all the hairpins out and threw them on the ground.
The heavy coils of hair loosened, untwisted like a glittering snake, and fell all about me like a cloak of gold. I leaped upon the swing again and, standing, swung myself in wide flights through the clear air. What joy it was! As I flew forward my hair streamed out behind me like a flag, and in the backward sweep it floated all about my head in a whirling canopy of light.