“And saw what I was doing there?”
“No.”
“Very well! To-morrow your father will die!”
Having said this, he disappeared.
Marusia returned home grave and sad. When she woke up in the morning, her father lay dead!
They wept and wailed over him, and laid him in the coffin. In the evening her mother went off to the priest’s, but Marusia remained at home. At last she became afraid of being alone in the house. “Suppose I go to my friends,” she thought. So she went, and found the Evil One there.
“Good evening, Marusia! why arn’t you merry?”
“How can I be merry? My father is dead!”
“Oh! poor thing!”
They all grieved for her. Even the Accursed One himself grieved; just as if it hadn’t all been his own doing. By and by they began saying farewell and going home.