Red Stefan by Patricia Wentworth

crack in these bad days. Who was there to say that Nikita had grain hidden under the floor of his barn? Did I know it, or any honest person in the village? Yet someone tells Them . Nikita is turned out and his house pulled down—yes, the very timbers are taken, and he and his wife and their four children are driven away, God knows where. Without a doubt they have all perished. What hearts of stone They must have to do such things! There was that poor Anna with a baby at her breast and another that could only just walk, and two older children, and all of them screaming and wailing and begging for mercy. Your fine friend Irina went by and heard them. For once she was silent and had nothing to say. We were all there, weeping with Anna and trying to console her—but what can you say to one who is being driven out to perish with her children? All at once Anna screamed out, ‘It is you who have brought this on us!’ and she pointed with her finger at Irina. ‘Why do you come here to destroy us? One day you will be punished for this—yes, one day you too will be unhappy!’”
    â€œWas it Irina who told?” asked Elizabeth in a tone of horror.
    â€œHow should I know?” said Akulina crossly. “Someone told, and therefore six persons must perish. Even the worst of the old landlords didn’t do such a thing as that. And it was his own grain, that he had sweated for, ploughing, sowing, reaping, storing. And for what? That he and his family might perish! Why should we grow grain any more or make a little cheese? Perhaps it will be our turn next. Perhaps you yourself, who are so Red, will go to Them and say, ‘Yuri and Akulina have cheeses stored in the thatch of their house.’”
    Stephen burst out laughing.
    â€œLet us at least eat one of the cheeses now before all these things happen,” he said.
    Akulina went away grumbling, but she brought out a cheese, and a bottle of the forbidden home-brew.
    â€œSince you have had a wedding without a feast, you may have a feast without a wedding,” she said.
    Yuri drank most of the liquor, which had a strong and horrible smell. When he had emptied two bottles of it, he told them the whole story of how the village President had cheated him thirty years before. It was over a black and white cow, and he had never got his own back. He went on telling the story until he fell asleep.
    When she had cleared away, Akulina filled the lamp in front of the ikon and lighted it. “After such talk of witches and were-mice, I’ll run no risks for this night,” she said. She crossed herself and genuflected before the ikon.
    When the other lamp was extinguished and all in the house was dark, the red light burned with a steady glow. Elizabeth found it comforting. She watched it until she fell asleep.

CHAPTER IX
    She awoke with a start. For a moment she was back in the room which she had had to share with Petroff’s mother, rousing, as she had been roused a dozen times in every night, to go here, to go there, to fetch this or that, to trim a lamp or light a fire, to prepare food, and all the time to be called every foul name. Then she was on her straw bed in Yuri’s house, very warm and safe, with the red lamp shining before the ikon in the corner and Stephen saying her name:
    â€œElizabeth—are you awake?”
    At first she could not tell where she was. There was a faint crimson twilight round the lamp, but the rest of the room was quite dark. Then he spoke again, and she heard him move. He was quite close to her. He said,
    â€œAre you awake?” and after a pause he repeated her name—“Elizabeth.”
    She raised herself then and asked,
    â€œWhat is it?”
    â€œMay I talk to you?” said Stephen. His voice sounded very near indeed, but she couldn’t see him. “It’s a most awful shame to wake you up, but it’s so much the safest time to talk. It would take a bomb going off right