In Sweet Darusya, many of the townspeople believed Darusya to be "foolish." She was believed to be eccentric in her behavior, unaware of her surroundings, and unable to speak (which Darusya disagreed with, believing that she simply didn't want to speak). She's also described as evidently suffering from a variety of physical ailments, such as frequent severe headaches and an apparent allergy of some kind to candy (which evidently brought on even more severe headaches).
People referred to her as "Sweet" Darusya though, rather than calling her foolish. Was this a common euphemism in rural Ukraine?