“Marusia, sweetheart!” says he, “would you like me to marry you?”
“If you like to marry me, I will gladly marry you. But where do you come from?”
“From such and such a place. I’m clerk at a merchant’s.”
Then they bade each other farewell and separated. When Marusia got home, her mother asked her:
“Well, daughter! have you enjoyed yourself?”
“Yes, mother. But I’ve something pleasant to tell you besides. There was a lad there from the neighborhood, good-looking and with lots of money, and he promised to marry me.”
“Harkye Marusia! When you go to where the girls are to-morrow, take a ball of thread with you, make a noose in it, and, when you are going to see him off, throw it over one of his buttons, and quietly unroll the ball; then, by means of the thread, you will be able to find out where he lives.”
Next day Marusia went to the gathering, and took a ball of thread with her. The youth came again.
“Good evening, Marusia!” said he.
“Good evening!” said she.
Games began and dances. Even more than before did he stick to Marusia, not a step would he budge from her. The time came for going home.
“Come and see me off, Marusia!” says the stranger.
She went out into the street, and while she was taking leave of him she quietly dropped the noose over one of his buttons. He went his way, but she remained where she was, unrolling the ball. When she had unrolled the whole of it, she ran after the thread to find out where her betrothed lived. At first the thread followed the road, then it stretched across hedges and ditches, and led Marusia towards the church and right up to the porch. Marusia tried the door; it was locked. She went round the church, found a ladder, set it against a window, and climbed up it to see what was going on inside. Having got into the church, she looked—and saw her betrothed standing beside a grave and devouring a dead body—for a corpse had been left for that night in the church.