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Show NO OUTWARD SIGN OF GRIEF Dumb Agony of Cossack Woman, Taking Tak-ing Leave of Mate, More Impressive Impres-sive Than Flow of Tears. It was the square of Yurievets (on the Volga) that one of those tragic fragments which life casts up like driftwood was flung at our feet. A Cossack's leave-taking of his mate; that was all, a million times repeated in a million different izbas, in that one summer. But it was more symbol of woman's ancient and inarticulate grief. These shawled and booted women of the North are too burdened with earth's sorrow to weep; they are like dumb cattle in their woe. The soldier himself was openly wiping his eyes on his coarse, dusty, brown sleeve, while under both arms he clutched absurdly two enormous loaves of black bread. A dingy little child iu its mother's arms fluttered uncomprehending hands In the direction of the steamer; but from the Mongol-cheeked, gray-eyed woman there was no sign. She neither touched her man in fnre-well, fnre-well, nor offered any of those small caresses by which we seek to mitigate our grief. The sullen silence of the North had laid its finger upon her, but her eyes followed her mate with the wild, unreasonable grief of the forest sprung. She stood still staring, star-ing, unaware of the baby in her arms, while the steamer moved slowly out into the gray mists. Long after dusk had closed down, I could see her face straining in the gloaming like a' mask of despair. Olive Gilbreath in the Yale Review. |