The snow had been, since early morning, threatening to fall. The day
rose, cloudy and very boisterous; grains of snow came down, minute, like
unsifted groats; and the gale, gaining in strength as the morning
advanced, and constantly changing its direction, howled loud and
dismally.
The weather notwithstanding, Hanka had set out with her father and
several _Komorniki_ immediately after noontide, to get dry wood for fuel
in the forest.
The gusts raged over the fields, shaking the trees, blowing clouds of
fallen snow into the air again, whistling and shrieking, and casting
them down once more, as when a linen cloth, full of white hemp peel, is
shaken out. Everything was lost to sight in the raging turmoil.
Once clear of the village, they went forward in single file along the
pathways between the sown crops, towards the pine-forest, now scarce
visible through the falling snow.
The wind, increasing in intensity, smote upon them from every quarter,
dancing wildly round them, and buffeted and struck them so violently
that they could hardly stand. They crawled along, bending down towards
the ground; while it rushed on, gathered up dry snow mingled with sand,
and returned to dash it in their faces.
Slowly they plodded onward, making half-audible sounds, and rubbing
their hands with snow; for the piercing frost went through and through
their thin garments; and the numerous snow-drifts around the piles of
stones or the trees were continually blocking the way, and had to be
turned, thus lengthening their journey a good deal.
Hanka walked foremost, often looking back at her father, bowed down, and
with his head in a shawl. He was dressed in a cast-off sheepskin of
Antek’s, and girt with a band of straw; and he dragged along at the
tail, panting, forced every now and then to stop, rest, and wipe his
eyes, which were watering with the blast. Then he would hasten on,
crying: “I am coming, Hanka, I am coming; fear not, I shall not lag
behind.”
Certainly he would have much preferred staying in the chimney corner.
But when she, poor thing! went out in such weather, how could he remain
at home? Besides, it was unbearably cold in the hut; the children
shivered and shuddered all the time; they could not cook anything, and
ate only dry bread.
Hanka, with set teeth, walked on in front of the _Komorniki_.—Yes, it
had come to that: Filipka, Krakalina, old Kobusova, Magda, Kozlova, the
very poorest in the whole place, were now her companions.
She sighed to think of it: yet it was by no means the first time she had
been out thus with them.
“Let it be so! Let it be so!” she said in a hard whisper, striving for
strength and patience.
Since it had to be, well, she was willing; she would go and seek for
firewood along with those paupers, and never weep, nor complain, nor beg
anyone to help her.
And, indeed, to whom could she go? They might give her something, but
with it also a word of pity ... such pity as might well wring the
life-blood out of the heart!... No: the Lord Jesus was trying her, had
sent her a cross: perhaps He would reward her ere long.... And, in any
case, she would bear all—never give way or let anyone pity or mock her!
In these last times, she had suffered so much that every part of her
shook with agony, each crushing her with its own particular pang.
It was not because of her poverty and the slights that went with it, the
hunger in her cabin, and the food, insufficient even for the children;
not because Antek drank his earnings away in the tavern with those boon
companions of his, caring nothing for his family, and often (when he had
crept home by stealth, like a vagabond dog) answering any word of
remonstrance with a blow. She could forgive all that. “He was out of
sorts, and his mood would pass, if she did but wait patiently.”—But that
he was unfaithful to her, that she could not forget!
No, she could not! What, with a wife and children, yet mindful of
neither, and so utterly absorbed in _her_!
The thought tore at her heart like the red-hot pincers of mediæval
tortures.
“He loves Yagna, he dotes upon her: she is the cause of all this!”
And the anguish of neglect and scorn and contumely; and her shame, her
jealousy, her craving for revenge—all these monsters were incessantly
tormenting her and plunging their venomous fangs into her heart!
“Have mercy, O Lord! Spare me, O Jesus!” she would groan in spirit,
raising to Heaven those eyes of hers, red with ever-falling tears.
She quickened her pace; the gale was so high upon the hills not yet
sheltered by the forest, that she felt intolerably cold. The women with
her, on the contrary, slackened their steps and now lagged behind—blurs
almost unseen in the mist of swirling whiteness. The forest was near;
and when that mist cleared up for an instant, it suddenly appeared on
the snowy plain like a huge wall of trunks in serried array.
“Come on faster,” she called out impatiently; “we shall rest when we get
to the wood.”
But they were in no hurry, stopping frequently, and crouching down on
the snow, heads away from the wind, like a covey of partridges, while
they talked together.
To her call, Filipka answered in surly fashion:
“Hanka is like a dog speeding after a crow—thinks she will get it if she
hastes.”
“Poor thing!” murmured Krakalina, sympathetically; “how she has come
down in the world!”
“Oh, well, she was warm enough at Boryna’s, and has tasted good things:
let her now taste things that are evil. Some starve all the years of
their lives, yet none pities them.”
“There was a time when she would not have bid us good day.”
“My dear, there is a saying: ‘Wealth gives a wreath to the brow;
poverty, wings to the feet.’”
“Once I would have borrowed a mallet of her, and she said it was for her
own use alone.”
“True, open-handed she was not, and she thought not a little of herself,
as do all the Boryna folk; but I am sorry for her, nevertheless.”
“To be just, that husband of hers is a scoundrel.”
“Were it any business of mine, I’d take Yagna to task on the high road,
rate her, curse her, and swinge her soundly.”
“That too may come to pass—worse still, peradventure.”
“The woman’s of the brood of Paches.... And her mother was just the same
in her youth.”
“Let us on: the wind is falling, and may go quite down ere nightfall.”
Presently they all entered the forest, and separated, but so as to be
within call for the home-coming. And the gloomy depths swallowed them up
so entirely that they soon could see hardly anything of one another.
It was a vast forest of old pine-trees, all standing close to each
other, straight and slender and strong; whose trunks, overgrown with
whitish-green lichens, looked like pillars of verdigris-stained copper,
peering forth amidst green verdure, flecked with grey, in impenetrable
ranks. Chilly mournful sounds rose up from the snow underfoot; overhead,
athwart ragged pine-boughs, as through a broken thatch, the sky was
visible.
The wind blew above them; but at times all seemed as still as in a
church, when the organs suddenly cease to play, and the chants are heard
no more, and nothing is audible save deep sighs, the shuffling of feet,
the mumbling of prayers in a faint dying hum: so the forest stood
motionless, mute, listening, as it were, to a far-away thundering—to the
wild cry of the ravaged fields which, rising up from some remote spot,
was heard only as a feeble moan.
By and by, however, the gale struck the forest with all its force—struck
against its close-set trunks, assailing its depths, shrieking in its dim
nooks, and fighting an army of giants.—Only to be defeated: its might
gave way, collapsed, grew weak, died in the compact undergrowth of
brushwood. The forest itself was unmoved; not a single branch waved, nor
did any trunk vibrate; within, the silence was deeper yet, still more
awful; only a bird or two was heard to flutter about in the shadows.
But, now and again, there would come a squall of lightning swiftness and
power, like a hungry falcon swooping down upon its prey: it took hold of
the tree-tops and, with an overwhelming shock, trampled and crushed and
shattered them in roaring frenzy. Then did the forest, as if roused from
slumber, wake up and shake itself and, shuddering from one end to the
other, rock its trees, swaying with a dull but hurtling and ominous
clangor; it rose again, stiffening and straightening itself once more,
uttering a terrible cry, and struggling like a wrestler blind and mad
with rage; and the hubbub rent the air, and there was fighting within
the wood to its innermost depths. Every creature that lurked and dwelt
in the thick copses shrank back in dismay to its lair; and, maddened
with alarm, the fowls of the air flew wildly about in the midst of the
snow-showers and avalanches of broken snapped-off boughs that fell from
the tree-tops.
And, after this, there would follow long death-silences, in which heavy
thuds were heard afar off.
“They are felling the trees in Vilche Doly; how fast the work goes on!”
old Bylitsa murmured, as he gave ear to the dull throbbing sounds.
“Hurry, hurry! we must return before night!”
They plunged into a clump of tall young saplings, where brushwood and
scrub had so intermingled their thickly tangled branches that they
scarce could force their way through. A sepulchral stillness reigned
around; no sound reached there; even light hardly filtered through the
thick layer of snow which crusted the trees all over, hanging like a
roof overhead. This secluded nook was earthy-ashy grey, very little snow
having been wafted to the ground, which was strewn, knee-deep in places,
with dry dead boughs; elsewhere with great masses of green moss; with
berry-shrubs, yellow, faded, cowering close to the ground as in fear;
and with dried clusters of toadstools.
Hanka went about actively, breaking off the biggest branches she could
find, cutting them all to the same length, and then putting them into
the open piece of canvas she had brought; working with such ardour that
she had to take off her shawl, she felt so warm. In about an hour’s
time, she had gathered a bundle of faggots so large that she could
scarcely lift it. Her father, too, had made a pretty large bundle
himself, and tied it up with a cord, dragging it along in search of a
tree-stump, where he might with more ease hoist it on to his shoulders.
They called out to the women; but the blast blew so furiously through
the vast forest that they could not make them hear.
“Hanka, we must go back by the poplar-road: it will be better than the
cut through the fields.”
“Come, then. Keep your eyes upon me, and do not lag too much behind.”
They at once struck off to the left, through a bit of old oak-forest.
But it was hard work getting on, the snow being more than knee-deep
here; and now and then came still worse patches, where the leafless
trees were scanty and there hung down from the mighty outspread branches
huge long beards of caked snow: here and there, too, some slender
sapling, covered with a shaggy rusty fell of dead leaves, would bend
down, striking the earth in the whistling wind.
It was still blowing hard, with the air so full of snow that there was
no going any farther. Old Bylitsa’s strength at once gave way, and he
came to a standstill. Even Hanka felt exhausted; but she only leaned
with her bundle against a tree, and sought for some better road.
“We shall never get through this way. Besides, there is a marsh beyond
the oak-forests. Let us go back through the fields.”
They somehow made their way back to the great dense pine wood, where it
was somewhat less gusty, and the snow less deep. Then they came out upon
the fields. But here they were met by such a driving blizzard that they
could not see a stone’s throw in front of them. The wind was constantly
blowing towards the forest, whence driven back as from a wall, it rushed
again into the fields, where, strong as ever, it caught up whole
hillocks of snow, lifted them bodily into the air like great white
clouds, which it again hurled against the trees. How it rushed to and
fro in the forest! how it eddied! how fiercely it smote upon them both!
and how they all but failed to reach the sown fields! The old man fell
to the ground, and she had to help him on, little as she herself was
able to keep standing.
Back they went to the forest, where, cowering behind some trees, they
took counsel together how to come back; for they could not tell in which
direction to turn.
“Along the pathway to the left: then we shall be sure to come out on the
poplar-road, just by the cross.”
“But I do not see the path at all.”
He had to give detailed explanations, for she feared to go the wrong
way.
“And can ye tell which way to take?”
“To the left, so far as I can guess.”
They trudged along, skirting the wood and a little within it, to be
sheltered from the assaults of the gale.
“Come quickly, night is falling fast.”
“I will, I will, Hanka; let me but breathe awhile.”
But it was no easy matter to win through. The path was not to be seen at
all; and besides, a terrible wind assailed them from one side, pouring
down avalanches. They took shelter behind trees, crouched under
juniper-bushes: all in vain. It pierced to the very marrow of their
bones, especially when they passed through some glen: the rustling of
the trees then would swell to shrieks, and the whole wood sway and rock
till the branches almost touched the ground, lashing their faces at
times; and now and then a young tree would fall with such a crash as one
might think only a whole uprooted forest could have made.
On they plodded as best they could, to reach the road soon and be home
before night: already the fields were turning grey, and over the snowy
wilds long dark streaks, like wreaths of smoke, began to appear.
They got to the road at last and, half dead with weariness, fell on
their knees before the crucifix.
It stood at the edge of the forest, close to the highway, sheltered by
four huge birch-trees, with their white smocks of bark and boughs which
dangled like tresses. On a cross of black wood hung a crucified Christ,
made of sheet-iron, and painted with lively glowing colours. The winds
had partly torn the figure away, for it was suspended by one arm only,
and battered the cross as it swung, creaking rustily, as with an appeal
for succour and rescue. The weatherbeaten birches would conceal it, as
they shook and tossed to and fro; clouds of snow, too, drifted past,
hiding it under a white mist, through which occasional glimpses of
Christ’s livid body and bleeding face were seen, peering forth from that
pallid veil, and filling the heart of the beholder with compassion.
On this old Bylitsa gazed with awe and crossed himself, but he durst say
nothing; for Hanka’s face, set, stern, hard, incomprehensible, was like
the night now coming on, with blasts, and dim dark snow-tempests:
ominously mysterious.
He thought that she saw nothing, heeded nothing. And indeed she sat lost
in dreary thought, always revolving that one fact—that Antek had been
unfaithful. Within her there was a tempest of sighs as heart-rending as
that body of Christ crucified—of tears frozen to ice, yet still burning
her to death—of clamorous outcries which agony was wringing from her
young life!
“Shameless! Without any fear of Heaven!—Her son-in-law, guilty of
incest!—O God! O God!”
The horror of it swept over her as a hurricane. At first dismayed, she
presently seethed with angry resentful emotion—like the forest she had
seen bowing to the blast, then rising in fury to resist it.
“Let us go on ... and faster!” she cried. Lifting her bundle on to her
shoulders and bending forwards under it, she went forth into the road,
never looking back upon the old man, but urged forward by unquenchable
implacable resentment.
“Oh, I will pay you for all this; yea, I will pay you in full!” she
said, wailing bitterly in spirit; and the bare poplar-trees wailed along
with her, as they did battle with the storm.
“I have enough of this. If my heart were of stone, such a blow would
break it!... If Antek chooses, let him stay abroad and take his ease in
the tavern. But her I do not forgive for the wrong she has done me: I
will pay her ... and in full! Yes, even though I rot in prison for
it.—If such were to walk God’s earth unpunished, then were there no
justice in the world!”... Such were her thoughts. But after a while her
fury burnt itself out, and grew as pallid as the flowers seen when the
window-panes are frosted over. Her strength was now almost entirely
spent, her burden crushed her down; the hard knots on the pine-faggots
bruised her shoulders, and her back was aching sorely; while her bundle,
fixed with a stick across her neck, pulled hard at her throat, choking
her so that she trudged on ever more heavily and slowly.
The road was all covered with driven snow, and open to the blasts on
every side. The poplars, scarcely visible a few yards away, stood in an
interminable row, bowing and bending with fearful cries and shrieks as
the wind lashed them; struggling as birds in a snare, that scream and
beat their wings in vain convulsive outbursts.
On the uplands, the wind had somewhat abated; but down below, its rage
was yet greater than before. Down the road it swept, and on either side,
and over the plain, and away in the grey blurred distance. The hurricane
still raged here, as in a cauldron: a thousand eddying gusts kept up a
goblin dance; a thousand spheres of snow, wafted off the plain, rolled
along like enormous white whirling spindles; thousands of snow-piles
went moving over the ground; thousands of ridges undulated forward,
growing larger and larger, higher and higher, as if they would reach the
sky and hide all things from sight—and then collapsed on a sudden with a
tumultuous uproar.
The whole country-side looked like a boiling pan, brimming over with
white liquid, bubbling and frothing and foaming and steaming; while,
with the night, there came multitudinous voices, rising up from the
ground, hissing loud overhead, thunderous afar off: sounds like the
swishing and cracking of many whips—forest-music as the organ’s low
rumbling drone at the Elevation—wild long howls that rent the air—cries
as of birds, wandering and lost—horrible noises as of unearthly weeping
and sobbing; and then silence again—and then the keen dry whistling of
the wind in the poplars, that tossed to and fro in the turbid
snow-charged air, like fearful phantoms, raising their arms to Heaven!
And Hanka dragged herself along, almost groping her way from poplar to
poplar, often stopping to rest, and listening to those weird voices of
the evening.
At the foot of one of those poplars, she saw a hare crouch, dark against
the snow. At her approach it fled into the snowstorm, which seized it as
with the talons of a bird of prey; and it squealed pitifully in its
clutch. Hanka cast a glance of sorrowful compassion at the poor beast as
it fled.—She could hardly move now, and with great difficulty lifted one
foot after another through the snow. The burden weighed her down
inexorably; and she often fancied she was bearing on her back the
winter, the snow, the winds—everything, in a word; that she had
everlastingly been thus walking on, with her sad, bleeding, weary soul,
and would continue thus till Doomsday. The road seemed to be lengthening
out endlessly, the weight she bore crushed her; she stopped to rest ever
more frequently, and with ever longer halts, half insensible as she was.
Her face was burning: she cooled it with snow, rubbed her eyes, braced
herself up as well as she could, and went forward to plunge again into
that shrieking, bellowing conflict of the elements. But she wept
abundantly; the tears gushed forth from her heart, that deep hidden
fountain of sorrow: from the very bottom of her heart thus torn asunder,
there came the desperate outcry of a creature hopelessly lost. Yet from
time to time she would pray, uttering her prayers in a mournful tone,
and breathing them out in detached words and phrases. So will a bird,
freezing to death, now and again flap its wings; and then, bereft of all
strength, alight upon the ground, hop forward a little, chirp a little,
and settle down once more in mortal drowsiness.
And so she again set to hurry on with her last remaining strength,
stumbling into snow-drifts, sometimes sticking fast in them, but always
going onwards, seized and scourged with a sudden fear and alarm, as she
thought of her children.
And now the wind brought her a tinkling sound, and the noise of
sledge-runners and men’s voices, but so brokenly that, though she
stopped to listen, she could not make out one word. Someone, however,
was certainly driving in her direction; and at last she saw the horses’
heads distinctly through the snow-mist.
“It is father-in-law!” she whispered; for she had made out the white
spot on the filly’s forehead. Then she waited no longer, but turned
round to go on.
She had not been mistaken. Boryna, along with Vitek and Ambrose, was on
his way back from the district court. They drove slowly, it being
difficult to get through the drifts: in some places they had been forced
to alight and lead the horses. They seemed to have been drinking, for
they were talking and laughing aloud, Ambrose now and then trolling out
some snatches of songs.
Hanka got out of their way, and drew her kerchief down over her face,
but could not prevent Boryna from recognizing her at once as he drove
past, whipping his horses up to get along more quickly. They dashed on,
but were stopped by another snow-drift. Then he looked round and pulled
up. When she was again visible and abreast of his sledge, he called out
to her:
“Throw your firewood in behind, and get up here: I’ll take you home.”
She had been so accustomed to do his bidding that now she did it
instinctively.
“Bartek has given a lift to Bylitsa, who was sitting and weeping under a
tree; they are close behind us.”
She answered nothing, but looked round gloomily at the raging chaos of
night and snowstorm as she dropped into the front seat, as yet only half
conscious. Boryna eyed her with careful scrutiny. She looked so wretched
that now she was a painful sight, with her livid frost-bitten face, and
eyes swollen with tears, and her mouth set in firm resolve. Shivering
with cold and weariness, she vainly tried to wrap herself up in her
tattered shawl.
“Ye ought to beware: in such a condition, an illness might easily take
you.”
“And who will work in my stead?”
“What! go to the forest in such weather as this?”
“We had no more fuel at all, and could not cook our meals.”
“Are your little ones well?”
“Little Peter was ill for a fortnight, but has quite recovered now, and
could eat twice as much as I give him,” she answered, now at her ease
and recovering from her state of prostration. Throwing her shawl back,
she looked him calmly in the face, without any of the scared meekness of
former times. The old man guessed that a transformation had taken place
in her, and wondered at it greatly: she was no longer at all the Hanka
of old. A sort of glacial repose was now to be felt in her, and her
compressed lips told of inflexible firmness and strength. He no longer
frightened her as of old; she spoke to him as to an equal and a
stranger, without either complaint or reproach; she answered simply and
to the point, in a voice which spoke of much suffering endured, with a
certain hardness in her tone which the tempering fire of hidden anguish
had wrought; only the gleam of her tearful azure eyes still betrayed an
intensely emotional soul.
“Ye have greatly changed.”
“Suffering shapes the soul as the smith shapes iron—and sooner.”
Her reply amazed him so, he could find nothing to say to it, and turned
round to Ambrose to talk about the lawsuit with the manor. In spite of
the Voyt’s promise, he had lost, and had to pay costs into the bargain.
“I shall,” he said confidently, “appeal and succeed.”
“That will be hard. The manor-folk have long arms, and manage to succeed
everywhere.”
“Against them too there’s a way—as there always is, if one waits
patiently for the right moment.”
“You are right, Matthias; but oh, how cold it is! Let’s go to the tavern
and warm ourselves.”
“Very well.—Having spent so much, I can spend a little more.—But ye
should know that only a blacksmith should ‘strike while the iron’s hot.’
The man who would overcome must take happenings coolly, and possess his
soul in patience.”
By the time they had come to the village, the twilight had deepened into
thick darkness, and in the dusky air the houses they passed by were
indistinguishable; but the storm was slowly subsiding.
Boryna stopped the horses at the path to Hanka’s cabin, and got down to
help her to get the bundle on her back; when she had alighted, he said
in her ear:
“Come round and see me—to-morrow, if you like. I know you are badly off;
that scoundrel drinks away all his earnings, leaving you and the
children to starve.”
“But ye drove us out; how can I dare return?”
“You speak foolishly.—I tell you, come!”
Choking with emotion, she kissed his hand, unable to utter a word.
“Will you come?” he asked, in a strangely kind and tender voice.
“I will, and thankfully; since ye order me, I will come.”
He whipped the horses up, and at once turned off to the tavern: while
Hanka, not waiting for her father, who was just alighting from Bartek’s
sledge, hastened back to her hut.
It was dark as pitch there, and seemed even colder than out of doors.
The children slept curled up in the feather-bed. She set busily about to
make the fire and prepare supper, but was all the while full of her
extraordinary meeting with Boryna.
“No! Were he on his death-bed, I must not go: Antek would make me pay
too dear!” she cried out angrily. But other thoughts succeeded
presently, some of revolt against her husband.
Had anyone in the world made her suffer so much as he?
True, Boryna had made over land to that swinish woman, and had driven
them away. But Antek had fought with him first, and had been continually
snarling at him, so that the old man lost patience. So long as he lived,
he had the right to do with his own land as he pleased.—And how tenderly
he had asked her to come just now! ... and inquired about the children,
and everything!—Yes, and never, had not Antek gone after that woman,
would there have been half this misery and humiliation.... That at least
was not in any wise the old man’s fault.
And as she went on musing, her resentment against Boryna began to abate.
In then came Bylitsa, half frozen and terribly exhausted. He had to warm
himself by the fire for an hour at least, before he could say how he had
been unable to go any farther, and possibly might have been frozen to
death under that tree but for Boryna.
“He saw me, and would have put me on his sledge; but when I said you
were on the road ahead, he left me to Bartek, and drove on to catch up
with you.”
“Was it so? He never told me that.”
“He is not a hard man really, but would have folk think he is.”
After supper, when the children had eaten as much as they could, and
were tucked up in bed again and asleep, Hanka sat down by the fireside
to spin what remained of the organist’s wool; and her father still
continued warming himself, looking timidly at her, clearing his throat,
and gathering courage to speak; which he did at last, though with great
hesitation.
“Prithee make it up with him. Think, not of Antek, but of yourself and
the children.”
“That is easy to say.”
“Boryna himself made the first advances.... And see: his home is now
become a hell.... He will surely thrust Yagna away from him; if not at
once, he will very shortly.... Yuzka can never manage so large an
establishment.—If, when that comes to pass, you have found favour in his
eyes, it were well.... You can render him many a service, and in good
season ... we know not what may happen ... he may ask you to return....”
As he spoke, she let the spindle go and, with her head propped on the
top of her distaff, began to think this over and reflect upon her
father’s advice.
He was now preparing to go to bed, but asked her, in a confidential
tone:
“Did he talk to you by the way?”
She told him all.
“Pray go to him, my daughter; go to-morrow morning; go, run to him,
since he calls for you. Think but of yourself and of the children.... Be
on the old man’s side, and kind to him. Be like the docile calf, which,
folk say, ‘thrives, sucks much milk, and waxes stout.’—Remember that
‘spite never yet brought success to any man.’—As to Antek, he will
return to you. He is now possessed of a devil, and driven to and fro by
him; but this will leave him soon, and he will come back to you. Our
Lord is watching to deliver you from all these woes in His own good
time.”
He spent much time exhorting and trying to convince her; but she made no
reply. Disappointed, he said no more, but went to bed and lay silent.
Hanka went on spinning and pondering his words.
From time to time she rose to see whether Antek was coming. Nothing was
to be heard.
She worked, but did not get on well. The thread would break, or the
spindle slip from her hand, because she was turning Boryna’s words over
in her mind.
Peradventure it might prove true: the hour might strike when he would
call her back again!
And by slow, slow degrees there grew up in her mind the desire—feeble at
first, at last invincible—for peace and reconciliation with Boryna.
“We three are destitute: there will be a fourth presently ... and what
shall I do then?”
She no longer took Antek into account, but considered herself and
children, and felt she must decide for them all—must and would.
If she could but once more get back that position of housewife at
Boryna’s and feel ground again, she thought, she would take up her
duties so thoroughly and earnestly that nothing should ever prevent
their perfect fulfilment, and hope grew within her heart, and waxed so
great, and filled her with such strength and energy and courage, that
her eyes flashed at the thought, and she felt all on fire.
For a long space she enjoyed this waking dream of hers—perhaps till
midnight—and made up her mind to go to Boryna the next day, and take the
children along with her, though Antek might forbid, and even beat her.
She would not obey him, but take the opportunity offered and go: she was
now aware of unconquerable power in herself, and felt ready to fight the
whole world, if she must.
Once more she looked out of doors. The wind had quite gone down; in the
black night, the snow appeared dark grey. Huge clouds passed in the sky,
like rolling waters; and out of the far-off woods, and from the
invisible shadows, there came a feeble murmur.
Having put the light out and said her prayers, she began to undress.
Suddenly a distant stifled noise rose out of the silence around her,
quivering,—grew stronger and stronger, and at the same time a ruddy glow
shone athwart the panes.
She ran out in terror.
Somewhere in the midst of the village, a conflagration had broken out: a
column of flame rose up, with smoke and a swarm of sparks.
The alarm-bell sounded presently, and the cries rang louder.
“Up! Up! There’s a fire!” she screamed to Staho in the other lodgings,
dressed in a hurry, and rushed forth into the road, where she was met by
Antek, running from the village.
“Where’s the fire?”
“Can’t tell.—Go in!”
“It may be at Father’s ... ’tis somewhere very nigh!” she stammered,
mortally afraid.
“Blood of a dog! get in!” he bellowed, thrusting her into the hut by
main force.
He was covered with blood, bareheaded; his sheepskin was rent in two,
his face blackened and grimy, and his eyes glowed like a madman’s.