3. Little Maroussia

How dear this place was to her! How dear to her, also, was the whole of Ukraine! The child knelt down and kissed with her burning lips the ground which she was going to abandon.

“Our Father in Heaven, help me,” she said. She arose, encouraged. Everything was incredibly peaceful beneath the flowery branches. She advanced some steps forward, and penetrated with precaution to the right among the thick shrubbery. Then she went to the left, listening all the time, scarcely breathing. Her eye examined every shadow; she scrutinized even the smallest nooks. Was she seeking some one?

At last, she was standing under the tall apple-trees. What! Nothing, no one to be seen! She looked all around her for the last time. You could see by the light of the stars how pale and anxious she was.

Suddenly she started, a frightened bird had just flown from her nest. She was annoyed with herself. A butterfly, which she had awakened, fluttered against her face and made her tremble. Was she then so weak?

She stood a longtime resting against a tree, the foliage of which protected and concealed her. The wind scattered the white apple-blossoms over the green grass. She said to herself: “It is like snow.” She feared that the rustling of the leaves would stop another noise, the feeble indication of which she seemed to await with bent head and listening ear.

Ah! A few steps from her, between two trees, stands,—she is not deceived? Isn’t it a shadow? No! It is the tall, slight figure of the new friend, for whom her father and mother are suffering, for whom she, like them, will brave everything. The figure is no longer motionless, it glides like a serpent among the branches of the trees.

The Envoy, doubtless, is searching for the little path that leads to the river. With a quick step, Maroussia runs after him. Very soon the noise of the river is heard, only a thicket separates it from him. He leans over, examines, and, at the foot of an enormous tree, whose branches dip in the river, he sees a boat. “A boat! It is the very thing I want! A river is the road which never betrays.” He is going to break through the thicket which separates him from it. Suddenly two little hands seize his arm, and a voice says to him in a very low tone: “No! no! not that,—not by that boat! The river is a mirror upon which everything can be seen, even from a great distance.”

Truly, he is much astonished, more so than if he had found himself surrounded by ten soldiers, armed to the teeth; but he does not let it be seen. You could have perceived by this that he is a man accustomed to all sorts of surprises.

He turned about and recognized the little girl.

“What are you doing here, my little girl?” smiling on the child, as if he had met her on the promenade, in circumstances the most favorable for a friendly conversation. But a few seconds passed before Maroussia, breathless and much excited, could add anything whatever to the words which she had already spoken.