3. Little Maroussia

“Why do you look at me?” cried this person. “Why don’t you open the door? Would you rather that we knock it down?” The mistress of the house, thus questioned, drew back a little. “My children fell asleep,” said she, and the truth is they are still sleeping, the little innocents. “The two men are sleeping also. Don’t make so much noise.”

“Open the door, silly fool!” vociferated the red face.

Danilo’s wife, as if paralyzed by fear, did not move an inch.

The door shook under the resounding blows, but it did not yield.

The man with the red face succeeded in forcing half of his body through the broken window, and in aiming his pistol at the woman’s breast:

“If your door is not wide open in one second, I will shoot you like a crow!”

The poor woman took one step toward the door, she seemed like a statue of stone trying to obey an order which she did not understand.

“Cursed woman!” cried the officer. But someone from without, drawing him back, pulled him from the window. The face of another officer appeared.

“Woman,” said he, “your whole house will be burned, and not one of you come out alive, if your door is not opened at once to our men.”

The mistress of the house, as though insane with fright, rushed to the door; but, either from awkwardness or terror, the key did not seem to turn in the lock. “I am opening,” she said, “I am opening, my lords; don’t you see? But this lock confuses me; tomorrow I must have it changed.”

At last, the door was opened.

It had taken a long enough time.

Officers and men rushed into the cottage and began searching every corner. They seemed like wolves in search of a prey which had escaped them.

The youngest boy, wakening suddenly, began screaming loudly. The older one saw everything, but did not flinch.

“Squalling brat, be still!” said one of the soldiers to the little boy who was crying.

The officer with the red face said nothing to him, but with a kick of his foot sent the child rolling, mute with terror, under the very bench upon which he had just been sleeping.