‘Let us go in,’ said Theodore.
‘Yes; you go,’ said Annita. ‘I will wait here a little; but be careful, for your old mother is very feeble now.’
When Theodore had gone, Annita tapped on the window pane, and called out, ‘We are here, mother,’ so that she might not be startled too suddenly. The old lady folded her hands together, and partly rose. At the same moment Theodore entered, and knelt down beside her. She uttered a shriek such as could only come from a mother’s heart. ‘Theodore, my son! my son!’ and she clung to him, weeping on his neck. Annita then entered quietly, and shed tears of joy with mother and son. Afterwards all the servants in the house came and kissed the hands of the home-comers.
It was a day of rejoicing throughout the estate when Theodore and Annita returned. When this was reported in the village one of the women went running home and told her husband. He exclaimed: ‘Is it true what you say, wife, that Theodore Ivanovitsch and Annita have returned?’
‘Yes, it is as true as that I live,’ she said.
‘Then I will never thrash you again,’ he exclaimed.
All the people streamed up to the castle to see the returned ones, and to kiss their hands. Theodore and Annita had taken Unnas with them, and when, half a year later, there was a wedding at the castle, Unnas also celebrated his wedding in the village.
Theodore had told him that he might choose any girl among all the serfs, and that he should have her. Unnas fell in love [[90]]with a girl who was a complete contrast to himself—the tallest girl in all the village—and for a good word, and a good house, and a piece of land, she gave the little Finn both her hand and her heart. She was at all events certain of never getting a thrashing from her husband. Thus it came about that to this day Theodore and Unnas’ descendants live at Olonets.
With this, the romance of the monastery comes to an end. As regards the ethnographical portion of it a little further may be added.