“_O you thought, my mother, you would never be rid of me! There will
come a day, a Sunday, when you will wish for me; you will weep
long and sore—‘O where now is my daughter?’_”
_The Daughter_—
If thou lovest me, Sweetheart,
Let me go to the cherry orchard—
No ill shall befall thee—I will but pluck the povna rozha.[52]
To-morrow I go to the quiet dunai[53] to wash the clothes; then will I
throw the blossom on the water.
Float, float, my rozha, as high as the banks of the river are high!
Float, my rozha, to my mother! When she comes to the river to draw
water she will know that the flower was borne to her from her
daughter’s hand.
_The Mother_—
Thy rozha has withered on the stream; wast thou in like ill case for
these three years?
_The Daughter_—
I was not sick, my mother, not a year, not an hour.... You chose for
me a bad husband.
Did I not carry water for you? Why did you not beg of God to give me a
good husband?
Did I not wash the clothes for you, O my mother?
Why did you curse me in this way?
_The Mother_—
Nay, child, I cursed thee not. But on a day—and only once—I said: “I
hope she may never marry!”
_The Daughter_—
And was not that wish ill enough—that I should never be married? You
could not have wished me worse just then.
For—when I was young—I knew not what it meant—the marrying of your
daughter.