Page:Korolenko - Makar's Dream and Other Stories.djvu/235

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THE DAY OF ATONEMENT
211

like two lips pressed to his mouth. Hey ho, what more is there to tell! If you have ever been kissed like that you know yourself how it feels. If you haven't, it's no use trying to tell you.

"Oh, Philipko, my darling for whom I have longed!" crooned the girl. "You have come, you have come! And I have been waiting so wearily for you. I thought I should parch up with longing, like grass without water."

"Eh hey, she hasn't parched up, though, thank God!" thought the miller, as he pressed the girl's not emaciated form to his breast. "Thank God, she is all right yet!"

"And when shall we have the wedding, Philip?" asked the girl with her hands still lying on Philip's shoulders, while she devoured him with burning eyes as dark as an autumn night. "Saint Philip's day will soon be here."

This speech was less to the miller's liking than the girl's kisses.

"So that's what she's driving at!" thought he.

"Ah, Philip, Philip, now you're going to catch it!"

But he summoned all the courage he had, and, turning his eyes away, answered:

"What a hurry you're in, Galya, I declare! Thinking about the wedding already, are you? How can we get married when I am a miller and may soon be the richest man in the village, and you are only a poor widow's daughter?"