they would be left fatherless and she herself a soldier’s wife and as good as widowed, she forgot the sharp-tongued joiner’s wife, hid her face in her hands, sat down on the bed, and let her head sink in the pillows.
“Mammy, you cluth me!” lisped her little girl, pulling the cloak with which she was covered from under her mother’s elbow.
“If you’d only die, all of you! I’ve brought you into the world for nothing but sorrow!” exclaimed Akoulína, and sobbed aloud, to the joy of the joiner’s wife, who had not yet forgotten the potash.