All Story Magazine, December 1913 — page 125: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

LOVE GOES BLINDLY. forward at the place where her noble lover was to meet her—where she would bid a last fareweH to these scenes of her childhood. Of what the future might hold for her Vera did not permit herself to think. She would not trust herself to do more than recall the breathless rap- ture of his embrace, of the hot words that made her palpitant even now in reminiscence. He had said that she was to leave drudgery and homespun behind’ her as things incompatible with his love for her. He had said: “Those little hands were made to be kissed, not for milking.” All that Tomasz had said of them was: ‘“ Your hands are white and strong, Vera. Would you not like to keep the household for me?” She had answered yes with the family approval, and all of the coun- tryside had congratulated her. To- masz was a hard worker, sober enough as men went, and thrifty in his ways. “Fle will make a good father for your children,” the old folks had told the girl, and she assented passively enough. She was willing then that it should be so. She knew that many a maiden envied her the privilege, and she planned things in a humble way— until Nikolai laroslaf came. Vera met him for the first time at the county fair. He had singled her out from a group of black-eyed maid- ens doing country dances on_ the green. He had induced her to step off to one side with him, and he had said: “Of all the girls here to-day you are prettiest, child. [ like you.” Vera’s eyes had answered his. It tickled her vanity that so fine a gentle- man should have noticed her. So she humored what she mistook for a pass- ing whim, saying to herself: “T shall never see him again, any- way. Wherein is the harm of a little coquetry ? ” To a maiden the harm is never self- evident. When Nikolai Iaroslaf, the boyar, and she kissed down by the 835 brookside that day their sensations were the same, yet far differently in- terpreted. To the man they implied a specific thing—to the girl they were only vague stirrings of the emotions —a hunger for she knew not what, and which, if she had located it, would have frightened and repelled rather than have allured her. Even in subsequent meetings when the man had roused passion in her the girl remained neuter in so far as she attached any significance to her feel- ings. It was not until that last night when his vehemence had torn the veil away from fundamentals that she was made shamefacedly conscious ac- knowledged that love implied subju- gation. And now she had promised to go away with him—to see life as a wom- an sees it from the masculated view- point. She dreaded, she was fright- ened, she was ashamed of the mater- nal instinct thus awakened. Yet she would go. The love of Nikolai Iaros- laf and the splendid future he offered her made life in a hovel now intolera- ble. At sundown all of the men came tramping in from their grimy work in the fields. They were sweaty and smelled—they were uproarious in their greetings. Ten, fifteen, twenty hairy lips smacked hearty kisses upon the girl’s cheek and found her unresponsive. She met each of them dumbly. The time was drawing short now. By and by Tomasz, her betrothed, arrived. His hair was sleeked down with lambs’ grease until it glistened, and he wore his worsted holiday clothes. He was a far bigger man, though younger, than Nikolai Iaros- laf. The tremendous muscles of his chest, arms, and legs showed even through his garments. When he laughed the whole room reverberated fronhit and the guests smiled, saying: “Young ‘Tomasz feels jolly to- night. He is thinking of ripe lips and a priest on the morrow.” comliclooks.com