The word “orphan” brought the death of Kaliksta to the minds of the women. One of them said,—
“To you, Kulik, drink! Oh, my dears, how that paralus [paralysis] took her so that she couldn’t stir! She was cold before the priest came to hear her confession.”
“I told her long ago,” said Kulik, “that she was spinning fine [near her end]. Last week she came to me. Said I, ‘Ah, better give Marysia to the mansion!’ But she said, ‘I have one little daughter, and I’ll not give her to any one.’ But she grew sorry, and began to sob, and then she went to the mayor to put her papers in order. She paid four zloty and six groshes. ‘But I do not begrudge it for my child,’ said she. My dears, but her eyes were staring, and after death they were staring still more. People wanted to close them, but could not. They say that after death, even, she was looking at her child.”
“Let us drink half a quarter over this sorrow!”
The organ was playing continually. The women began to be somewhat tender. Kulik repeated, with a voice of compassion, “Poor little thing! poor little thing!” and the second old woman called to mind the death of her late husband.
“When he was dying,” said she, “he sighed so, oh, he sighed so, he sighed so!—” and drawling still more, her voice passed into a chant, from a chant into the tone of the organ, till at last she bent to one side, and in following the organ began to sing,—
“He sighed, he sighed, he sighed,
On that day he sighed.”
All at once she fell to shedding hot tears, gave the organist six groshes, and drank some more vodka. Kulik, too, was excited by tenderness, but she turned it on Marysia,—
“Remember, little orphan,” said she, “what the priest said when they were covering thy mother with snow, that there is a yamyol [an angel] above thee—” Here she stopped, looked around as if astonished, and then added, with unusual energy, “When I say that there is a yamyol, there is a yamyol!”
No one contradicted her. Marysia, blinking with her poor, simple eyes, looked attentively at the woman. Kulik spoke on,—