Compensation
One day, while the inmates of the tower were preparing for one of
their fiendish festivals, the Master's little son came into Mashinka's
room. He had just come up from the underground "chapel." The boy's
face looked sorely troubled. When Mashinka asked what ailed him, he
whispered softly to her:
"Something makes me so sad--what it is I cannot tell. But this at
least I know--I hate my father!"
Then Mashinka took the boy's cold hand in hers and tried to soothe
away the pain that filled his heart. She taught him how he ought to
love both his Heavenly and his earthly father, even though both should
chastise their child so severely that love was moved to give place to
fear.
Thus the evil seeds which the Master was perpetually striving to sow
in his son's heart by night, were ever rooted up again in the daytime
by the poor Volhynian peasant girl.
[Illustration]