“And you’ll become a bondsman?”
“God won’t allow that!”
“God scorns us. For serfs there is only the landlord’s will...”
“Let’s run away together! To Zaporizhia. Or the Polish side.”
“The hetmanites9 will catch us and torture us to death.”
“Then let’s wed. To spite the hetmanites and the Lord!”
“You’re crazy.” Mariana brushed him aside. “Captivity is death for eagles.”
“But that’s for eagles!”
“Farewell,” the girl said softly, but sternly. She filled her buckets with water and bore them into the night, which approached like a horde of savages. “Farewell, Hryhoriy!”
Skovoroda leaned against the log wall of the well. He swallowed burning tears. He was not weeping, no. He had turned to stone, swathed in inky darkness, sorrow and pain. Those vampires, those degenerates! They had sowed
