“She would leave the shadows beside the oven to go out and dance in the shade. But though Snegurochka danced, her heart was still cold at its core.
“The snow began to melt in earnest; the snow-maiden grew pale and weak. She went weeping into the darkest part of the forest. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘I would feel as men and women feel. I beg you to grant me this.’
“？‘Ask Spring, then,’ replied the frost-demon reluctantly. The lengthening days had faded him; he was more breeze than voice. The wind brushed the snow-child’s cheek with a sorrowful finger.
“Spring is like a maiden, old and eternally young. Her strong limbs were twined with flowers. ‘I can give you what you seek,’ said Spring. ‘But you will surely die.’
“Snegurochka said nothing and went home weeping. For weeks she stayed in the izba, hiding in the shadows.
“But the young shepherd went and tapped on her door. ‘Please, my love,’ he said. ‘Come out to me. I love you with all my heart.’
“Snegurochka knew that she could live forever if she chose, a snow-girl in a little peasant’s izba. But…there was the music. And her lover’s eyes.
“So she smiled and clothed herself in blue and white. She ran outside. Where the sun touched her, drops of water slid from her flaxen hair.
“She and the shepherd went to the edge of the birch-wood.
“？‘Play your flute for me,’ she said.
“The water ran faster, down her arms and hands, down her hair. Though her face was pale, her blood was warm, and her heart. The young man played his flute, and Snegurochka loved him, and she wept.
“The song ended. The shepherd went to take her into his arms. But as he reached for her, her feet melted. She crumpled to the damp earth and vanished. An icy mist drifted under the warmth of the blue sky, and the boy was left alone.
“When the snow-maiden vanished, Spring swept her veil over the land, and the little field flowers began to bloom. But the shepherd waited in the gloom of the wood, weeping for his lost love.
“Misha and Alena wept as well. ‘It was only a magic,’ said Misha to comfort his wife. ‘It could not last, for she was made of snow.’？”
OLGA PAUSED IN HER STORYTELLING, and the women murmured to one another. Daniil slept now in Olga’s arms. Marya drooped against her knee.
“Some say that the spirit of Snegurochka stayed in the forest,” Olga continued. “That when the snow fell, she came alive again, to love her shepherd-boy in the long nights.”
Olga paused again.
“But some say she died,” she said sadly. “For that is the price of loving.”
A silence should have fallen, as is proper, at the end of a well-told story. But this time it did not. For at the moment Olga’s voice died away, her daughter Masha sat bolt upright and screamed.
“Look!” she cried. “Mother, look! It is her, just there! Look!…No—no! Don’t— Go away!” The child stumbled to her feet, eyes blank with terror.
Olga turned her head sharply to the place her daughter stared: a corner thick with shadow. There—a white flicker. No, that was only firelight. The whole room roiled. Daniil, awake, clung to his mother’s sarafan.
“What is it?”
“Silence the child!”
“I told you!” Darinka squealed triumphantly. “I told you the ghost was real!”
“Enough!” snapped Olga.
Her voice cut through the others. Cries and chatter died away. Marya’s sobbing breaths were loud in the stillness. “I think,” Olga said, coolly, “that it is late, and that we are all weary. Better help your mistress to bed.” This was to Eudokhia’s women, for the Grand Princess was inclined to hysteria. “It was only a child’s nightmare,” Olga added firmly.
“Nay,” groaned Eudokhia, enjoying herself. “Nay, it is the ghost! Let us all be afraid.”
Olga shot a sharp glance at her own body-servant, Varvara, of the pale hair and indeterminate years. “See that the Grand Princess of Moscow goes safe to bed,” Olga told her. Varvara too was staring into Marya’s shadowed corner, but at the princess’s order, she turned at once, brisk and calm. It was the firelight, Olga thought that had made her expression seem an instant sad.
Darinka was babbling. “It was her!” she insisted. “Would the child lie? The ghost! A very devil…”
“And be sure that Darinka gets a draught and a priest,” Olga added.
Darinka was pulled out of the room, whimpering. Eudokhia was led away more tenderly, and the tumult subsided.