Christmas Eve

After her father left, she dressed up for a long time and cursed herself in front of a small tin-framed mirror and could not stop looking at herself. “What did people think to glorify that I was good? She said, as if absentmindedly, just to chat about something with herself. "People lie, I'm not good at all." But a face flashed in the mirror, fresh, alive in childhood youth, with shiny black eyes and an inexpressibly pleasant smile that burned through the soul, suddenly proved the opposite. “Are my black eyebrows and eyes,” the beauty continued, not releasing the mirror, “so good that there is no one equal to them in the world? What's so good about that upturned nose? and in the cheeks? and in the lips? How good are my black braids? Wow! you can be frightened in the evening: they, like long snakes, twisted and twisted around my head. I see now that I am not good at all! - and, pushing the mirror a little further away from her, cried out: - No, I'm good! Oh, how good! Miracle! What joy I will bring to the one who will be my wife! How my husband will admire me! He will not remember himself. He will kiss me to death. " - Wonderful girl! - whispered the blacksmith who entered quietly, - and she has little boasting! He stands for an hour, looking in the mirror, and does not look enough, and still praises himself aloud!