"When I have gone will she be sorry for me?"
"If you are not willing to constrain her in Cossack fashion, then perhaps it is better for you to go."
"I will not, I cannot, I dare not. I know that she would die."
"Then maybe it is better for you to go. While she sees you she will not wish to know you, but when she has been a couple of months with me and Cheremís, you will be dearer to her."
"If she were well, I know what I should do. I should bring a priest from Rashkoff and have a marriage celebrated; but now I am afraid, for if she were frightened, she would die. You have seen yourself."
"Leave us in peace. What do you want of a priest and a marriage? You are not a real Cossack. I want neither Pole nor Russian priest here. There are Dobrudja Tartars in Rashkoff, you want to get them on our shoulders too; and if you should bring them, how much of the princess would you see? What has got into your head? Go your way and come back."
"But look in the water and tell me what you see. Tell the truth and don't lie, even if you should see me dead."
Dontsovna approached the mill-stream and raised a gate holding back the water at the fall. All at once the swift current rushed with redoubled force, the wheel began to turn more swiftly, until at last it was covered with liquid dust; the foam, beaten fine, rolled under the wheel like boiling water.
The witch bent her eyes into the boiling mass and seizing the tresses near her ears, began to cry,--
"I call! I call! Appear! In the oaken wheel, in the white foam, in the clear mist, whether evil, whether good, appear!"