But one day they had visitors at
their house, who enjoyed themselves, and drank, and began
bragging about their wives. This one's wife was handsome;
that one's was handsomer still.

"You may say what you like," says the host, "but a handsomer
wife than mine does not exist in the whole world!"

"Handsome, yes!" reply the guests, "but a heathen."

"How so?"

"Why, she never goes to church."

Her husband found these observations distasteful. He
waited till Sunday, and then told his wife to get dressed for
church.

"I don't care what you may say," says he. "Go and get
ready directly."

Well, they got ready, and went to church. The husband
went in--didn't see anything particular. But when she looked
round--there was the Fiend sitting at a window.

"Ha! here you are, at last!" he cried. "Remember old
times. Were you in the church that night?"

"No."

"And did you see what I was doing there?"

"No."

"Very well! To-morrow both your husband and your son will
die."

Marusia rushed straight out of the church and away to her
grandmother. The old woman gave her two phials, the one full
of holy water, the other of the water of life, and told her what
she was to do. Next day both Marusia's husband and her son
died. Then the Fiend came flying to her and asked:--

"Tell me; were you in the church?"

"I was."

"And did you see what I was doing?"

"You were eating a corpse."

She spoke, and splashed the holy water over him; in a
moment he turned into mere dust and ashes, which blew to the
winds. Afterwards she sprinkled her husband and her boy with
the water of life: straightway they revived. And from that
time forward they knew neither sorrow nor separation, but they
all lived together long and happily.[22]

Another lively sketch of a peasant's love-making is given in the
introduction to the story of "Ivan the widow's son and Grisha."[23]
The tale is one of magic and enchantment, of living clouds and
seven-headed snakes; but the opening is a little piece of still-life
very quaintly portrayed. A certain villager, named Trofim, having been
unable to find a wife, his Aunt Melania comes to his aid, promising to
procure him an interview with a widow who has been left well provided
for, and whose personal appearance is attractive--"real blood and
milk! When she's got on her holiday clothes, she's as fine as a
peacock!" Trofim grovels with