When Tichon breathed the fresh air and saw through the window the blue sparkling snow and the stars, immense joy filled his soul. He pressed ecstatically the thin hand of Marioushka.
He noticed that she was no longer with child; and remembered Mitka saying a few days ago, that she had been delivered of a boy. The child was pronounced a little Christ, being born of the King by the will of the Holy Spirit, not from the flesh, nor the will of man, but by the will of God Himself.
Marioushka made Tichon sit down on a bench, placed herself next to him, and again with great effort tried to speak. But instead of words, all she could articulate was vague lowings of which he could make nothing. Finding that she could not make herself understood, she stopped and began to cry. He put his arm around her, and pressing her head against his bosom, he began to caress her soft light hair, lighter still in the moonlight. She was trembling, and it seemed to him that a captive bird was fluttering in his arms.
At last she raised to him her large, limpid, dark blue eyes, two cornflowers beaded with dew, and smiled through her tears, started as if trying to catch a sound, straightened her neck, long, thin, like the stem of a flower, and suddenly in a clear, silvery voice—the voice she used to sing with in the night watches—she warbled into his ear. The stuttering had disappeared, the words half sung, half whispered had become distinct.
“Ah, Tichon, my friend, save me from the fiends. They will kill Ivanoushka——”
“What Ivanoushka?”
“My son, my poor little boy!”
“Why should they kill him?” said Tichon in bewilderment. She seemed to be speaking in a delirium.
“In order to partake of the living blood,” she whispered, nestling to him with infinite terror. “The little Christs they say, the stainless lambs, are born in order to be killed, to give themselves for holy food to the faithful. The child, they say, is not alive; he is but an appearance, a holy icon, an imperishable body, which can neither suffer nor die—— but they lie, the accursed ones, I know it, I know it, Tichon. My son is alive. He is not a Christ, but Ivanoushka, my own darling! I will not deliver him to anybody. I would rather perish than give him up—— Oh, Tichon, save me from the enemy!”
Again the words became confused. At last she stopped, and leaning her head on his shoulder, she lost consciousness or else fell asleep.