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"
What does it mean that Polikey does not come?" said the noblewoman
impatiently. "Where can he be? Why does he not come at once?"
Aksiutka flew again to his house and demanded to see Polikey.
"
He went a long time ago," answered Akulina, and looking around with an
expression of fear on her face, she added, "He may have fallen asleep
somewhere on the way."
About this time the joiner's wife, with hair unkempt and clothes
bedraggled, went up to the loft to gather the linen which she had
previously put there to dry. Suddenly a cry of horror was heard, and
the woman, with her eyes closed, and crazed by fear, ran down the ladder
like a cat.
"Illitch," she cried, "has hanged himself!"
Poor Akulina ran up the ladder before any of the people, who had
gathered from the surrounding houses, could prevent her. With a loud
shriek she fell back as if dead, and would surely have been killed had
not one of the spectators succeeded in catching her in his arms.
Before dark the same day a peasant of the village, while returning from
the town, found the envelope containing Polikey's money on the roadside,
and soon after delivered it to the boyarinia.
274
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