LITMIR.BIZ

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right, change clothes also for dinner, – the grandmother ordered.

      – Did you pin up a ram? – asked Ilin, – What for?

      On it the old woman only turned back and darted a meaningful glance at the girl. Ilina understood that money which she brought from the city last time already ended, and the old woman had to borrow from Grigor again…

      Ilina, having frowned, climbed a shaky ladder on the second floor and, having thrown off from itself the dress covered with a layer of the dried-up clay, put it near a shawl on a bed then she changed clothes and went down.

      Taleyta already sat at a small wooden table in a small room where the food was cooked, and giggled. Red-haired Ilina joyfully sighed, having inspected a kitchenette. At once to the left of the entrance aperture drawn by the curtain which became thinner from time there was a rectangular table with five chairs which are moved up closely to it – three for owners and two for guests, bouquets of dried herbs from which made tea, all also hung over a table, extending sweetish and spicy aroma, on the right – the brownish furnace put from clay bricks. Having looked at the furnace, Ilina sighed again – the bricks crumbling places would need to be replaced long ago, but whether it is worth thinking of it when money is hardly enough for food.

      Ilina removed one of chairs and sat down directly opposite to a small window from which to the room dim light flew. The old woman lit a splinter and put it on a table in a small clay pot. Ilina looked at the oranzhevaty circle of light rejected on a ceiling by the burning splinter.

      – You are welcome to all we have, – the old woman told, putting before granddaughters on a table two bowls with mutton soup, – there is no bread yet…

      – How many did you borrow, the grandmother? – suddenly Ilina asked.

      – It does not matter, – the woman responded.

      – Has! – the girl exclaimed, having sharply jumped because of a table, – I need to know as far as we can postpone a wedding…

      – And it here at what? – Taleyta asked, and her cheeks slightly reddened.

      – I do not wish that my sister … – Ilina choking with nervousness, – I… I will not give her to this old man!

      – The darling, calm down, – the old woman told, putting hands on shoulders to the girl and trying to seat her back at the table, – We will have enough money for a month or even more.

      Having frowned even stronger, Ilina put elbows on a table and thoughtfully stared at the shivering splinter fire. The flame played reflections on golden and red hair of the girl. Coming back home after a week of wanderings, she did not expect to learn that all is bad. The marriage of younger sister rose before the girl as terrible punishment for their family again.

      – You eat … – the grandmother’s voice was distributed nearby.

      Ilina unwillingly took a spoon and started a meal. The stomach pined with hunger, but the girl already got used to this feeling for long time of their disasters and almost did not notice it. Suddenly she found a big piece of meat in the bowl. The organism exhausted during long transition demanded some food therefore, without remembering itself, the girl greedy stuck teeth into meat, trying to bite off and chew rigid fibers.

      – Shandor came. Asked you, – the old woman told for some reason half-whisper, frowningly looking at the red-haired granddaughter.

      Ilina sharply swallowed, and the piece of meat got stuck at her in a throat. The girl has convulsively a fit of coughing. Taleyta jumped from the place, scooped a water ladle from the small keg standing under a window and stretched to the sister. The girl dropped lips to edge of a ladle and began to drink greedy. At last, she felt that the piece squeezing a throat from within went down, to a stomach.

      – What it was necessary to it? – the girl asked gruffishly on what the old woman only shrugged shoulders.

      – It is better for you most to ask, – she answered.

      – Well is not present, – Ilina muttered.

      Taleyta grinned again.

      – Thanks, everything was very tasty, – Ilina told, removing a bowl with soup and rising because of a table.

      – Well, where you?. – it is almost upset the old woman threw into emptiness, – Doamna Bogna asked Taleyta to knit stockings. Could you carry?

      Ilina sharply stopped a back to the grandmother, then was slowly developed. At all love for the family, the girl could not overcome the disgust for Shandor, his father and mother whom Taleyta and Crean’s grandmother considered the benefactor.

      – Yes, the grandmother, I will carry, – is squeezed the girl nodded, having turned back.

      The old woman stood up from a chair and walked by the granddaughter to the neighboring room. Having rummaged in a huge, heavy dresser, it exposed the long snow-white stockings knit from soft sheep wool. Ilina has a look at accurate eyelets over which her sister tried the whole week. They lay equal ranks, to one another, doing woolen stockings impenetrable for cold. As it was a pity for the girl because that these stockings in which so much love and efforts is enclosed will be tense on sore, curve legs of the hated beldame soon.

      – Superfluous do not take, – the old woman told, stretching to the granddaughter who immediately was going to go, a shawl, and then, having kept silent, added, – Shandor on the general mow – the roof fell off and Grigor ordered to build up in a new way till the cold weather… The benefit though killed nobody… Talk to it…

      The old woman whispered the last words already to herself under a nose, but Ilina all the same caught.

      Having tidied up the hair scattered on shoulders under an easy scarf, Ilina muffled in a shawl and hurried to go outside, pressing work of the sister to a breast. Tomasz with joyful bark got out and hurried for the hostess.

      – Missed, the old cheat, – the girl smiled and, having sat down, frayed a dog behind an ear.

      The house of family Viera was located on the outskirts of the village. As the richest and esteemed, it was surrounded with a high wattled fence and a garden in the shadow of which hundreds of small footpaths ran up…

      Winding on the narrow streets of the village lying between houses, sheds, sheds, Ilina convulsively looked around as if being afraid of a meeting with someone. Faithful Tomasz followed it, keeping to the left.

      The huge shed in which residents of the village stored the hay mown for the cattle for the winter was under protection of family of rich men and therefore it was brought on the fenced territory. Ilina slowly pulled on herself the gate conducting in a domonical garden, trying to make so that that did not creak. Suddenly Tomasz darted off and with loud modulating bark rushed forth, having slipped in a narrow crack between a fence and the opening gate.

      – Tomasz! Tomasz! To me! – the voice was heard suddenly.

      Ilina slipped in a gate after a dog and hid behind the next tree. Having recovered the breath to calm without restraint the heart clogged into breasts, the girl slowly turned back and looked out of the shelter.

      Tomasz, joyfully wagging a tail stump, a trot hurried to the shed. Ilina blinked the eyes. Indeed, from darkness of the shed the high, strong figure slowly separated and went forward, cutting off the course to a dog.

      The young man, years twenty five, wide movement threw the taken-off shirt through a shoulder. In lines of his face there was nothing remarkable, but nevertheless he was extraordinary beautiful. Soft fair-haired, slightly longish hair fell down locks on a high forehead. The gray irises of eyes outlined at the edges by a bright green border always shone cheerfulness and some person, sharp attentiveness. Over dense black eyebrows the superficial wrinkle becoming more noticeable when the man became angry lay or deliberated over

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