I touched my friend’s arm and pointed.
“She’s very beautiful,” said I.
“She’s very old,” said he.
Then I suddenly saw in her the figure of a patient woman, who has given up her youth, appealing with passionate arms to God to grant her rest. Another moment and there came a faint moaning sigh falling upon my ears—a sigh like the fluttering of an autumn leaf that eddies slowly to the ground.
“What is that?” I asked.
“The wind-mill,” said my friend. “She’s crying to be set free, to have her arms unloosed.”
As he said that, I saw her as a tired woman no longer. She became majestic in her agony then. So it seemed to me must the women in Siberia cry at night with faces turned, and hands stretched forth towards their native Russia.
“How long has she been idle?” I inquired.
“Oh—many, many years,” said he.