me not, but continued to give vent to her tears.

I stopped to examine her appearance; her black hair, arranged in the
fashion of the country, flowed from under the diadem usually worn by the
Siberian girls, and formed a striking contrast, by its jet black colour,
with the fairness of her skin. Whilst I was looking at her, she turned
her head, and, perceiving me, rose in great haste, wiped off her tears,
and said to me:

"Pardon me, father--but I am very unfortunate."

"I wish," said I, "that it were in my power to give you any
consolation."

"I expect no consolation," she replied; "it is out of your power to give
me any."

"But why are you crying?"

She was silent, and her sobs alone intimated that she was deeply
afflicted.

"Can you have committed any fault," said I, "that has roused your
father's anger against you?"

"He is angry with me, it is true; but is it my fault if I cannot love
his Aphanassi?"

The subject now began to be interesting; for as Chateaubriand says,
there were love and tears at the bottom of this story. I felt peculiarly
interested in the narrative.

I asked the young Siberian girl who this Aphanassi was whom she could
not love. She became more composed, and with enchanting grace, and
almost French volubility, she informed me that the summer before a
Baskir family had travelled further to the north than these tribes are
accustomed to do, and had brought their flocks into the neighbourhood of
the zavode of Tchornaia; they came from time to time to the village to
buy things, and to sell the gowns called _doubas_, which their wives dye
of a yellow colour with the bark of the birch tree. Now her father, the
respectable Michael, was a shopkeeper, and constant communications began
to be established between the Baskir and the Russian family. This
connection became more close, when it was discovered that both families
were of that sect which pretends to have preserved its religion free
from all pollution or mixture, and gives its members the name of
_Stareobratzi_. The head of the Baskir family, Aphanassi, soon fell in
love with young Daria, and asked her in marriage from her father; but
though wealthy, Aphanassi had a rough and repulsive look, and Daria
could not bear him; she had, therefore, given him an absolute refusal.
Her father doated on her, and had not pressed the matter farther, though
he was desirous of forming an alliance so advantageous to his trade; and
the Baskir had returned