Polikoúshka by Leo Tolstoy

For several minutes no explanation could be arrived at amidst the general tumult. A crowd of people had collected, everyone was shouting and talking, children and old women were crying. Akoulína lay unconscious.

At last the men -- the joiner and the steward -- who had run to the place, went up the ladder, and the joiner's wife began telling for the twentieth time how she, "nothing doubting, went to fetch a dress, and just looked -- this wise -- and see. a man. and I look, and a cap is lying inside-out, close by. I look. the legs are swinging. I went cold all over! Is it pleasant? . To think of a man hanging himself, and that I should be the one to see him! . How I came clattering down I myself don't remember. it's a miracle how God saved me! Really, the Lord has had mercy on me! . Is it a trifle? . such steepness and from such a height. Why, I might have been killed!"