But so I might lose my soul.
O my ‘Ptashka!’[[71]]
Do something—let me not go home.
It is hard, hard for me—
There, at home, the Old One waits
With the marriage brokers.
Tell me my fortune.”
“So be it, Daughter. Tarry a while,
But do my will. Long ago I, too,
Was a marriageable maiden—