Spring was drawing nigh. March had come, with its own most foul
weather—quagmiry, chilly, foggy; with its daily falls of sleet, its
daily thick, shaggy, dingy mists, creeping along over the fields, and
quenching all light so thoroughly that the whole day, from grey dawn to
dusky twilight, was equally dark. Or, if at rare intervals the sun
peered, half drowned, out of those sombre abysses, it was but for the
space of one Ave Maria; and ere one’s soul could rejoice in the
splendour, one’s body in the warmth of it, down came the dusk once more
upon the world, down swept the winds afresh, and the “fog and filthy
air” resumed their reign.
Folk were sorely troubled at this, for they had lived in hope that,
after a week or two, spring would get the upper hand and make amends for
all they had suffered. And, meantime, the roofs let the rain in, the
water came through walls and windows, and poured on every side. In
despair they saw it creep in from the fields, fill all the ditches even
to brimming over, make the roads gleam and glitter like waterways, come
round through the hedgerows, and stand about the farm-yards in deep miry
pools. And as the snow continued to melt and the rain to fall, the
thawed ground soon softened to such a degree that in many farm-yards
there were mud-pits without number at noontide, and folk had to lay
boards outside the huts, or bridge the approaches with trusses of straw.
Nor were the nights less unbearable, with their downpours and their
black darkness—so thick that one might fancy light had gone out for
ever. Few lit fires in the evening: weary of the wretched weather, all
went to bed at nightfall—and Lipka was in palpable obscurity. True, in a
few huts they assembled to spin: there the windows gleamed, and the low
chant of the “Lamentations” quavered, together with other mournful hymns
on the sufferings of Jesus. They were accompanied by the blasts, the
pattering rain, and the trees lashing one against the other through the
enclosures.
No wonder if Lipka was lost in this sea of slush: the huts were so
lowly, they scarce rose out of the ground where they crouched, dank,
dingy, wretched to look upon. And, as to the lands and gardens and roads
and sky, there was so much water everywhere that no one could
distinguish anything from anything else.
The weather was bleak, besides; it chilled the very bones, and few cared
to meet it. The blasts blew, the rain pattered, the trees rocked in a
solitude; for all the voices heard, Lipka might as well have been a
place of the dead. Only the cattle lowed sometimes over their empty
mangers; or cocks fell a-crowing; or ganders, parted from their brooding
mates, would cry aloud and indignantly.
The days were longer; but this only made the time hang more heavily on
people’s hands. No one had any work to do, except the few who laboured
at the sawmill or carried timber for the miller from the forest. The
others lounged about the cabins, sitting at their neighbours’ till the
day dragged on to its close. Some of the older men took to getting
ploughs, or harrows, or other such implements, ready for spring; but the
work went on slowly and lifelessly, all being equally exasperated by the
foul weather. And troubled at heart, besides; for the lands sown in
autumn were in a pitiful state; and—especially in the low-lying
fields—parts of the crops were frozen. Some of the farmers, too, were
getting to the end of their provender, and famine was looking in at the
byres. Others had found that all their stock of potatoes was
frost-nipped. Others, again, had their huts full of sick folk; and for
many the days of starvation which often usher in the spring seemed at
hand.
So in more than one cabin warm meals were served only once a day; and
people went to the miller in ever-increasing numbers to borrow a few
bushels of flour that they were to pay for later in work. He was,
indeed, a confounded extortioner; but no one had either ready money, or
things to sell in town. Others went whining to Yankel, begging him to
lend them a screw of salt, or a quart of groats, or a loaf of bread,
putting their pride in their pockets; for, as the proverb runs: “When it
comes to the worst, Goodman Belly is first.”
So many of the folk were in want, and there was no work for them to do!
The peasant-farmers themselves had none to give. The Squire was resolved
not to let one man of Lipka earn a kopek in his forest, and remained
unmoved even by the prayers of a large deputation. And thus, both
amongst the _Komorniki_ and the poorer peasant landowners, the misery
became so great that many a one thanked God that he still had potatoes,
and salt to season them with—though with bitter tears into the bargain!
Therefore there was now much heart-burning in the village, with
quarrelling and conflicts as well. People were restless, uncertain of
the morrow, and sorely agitated, everyone seeking to satisfy the greed
which gnawed at his heart by snatching whatever he could from his
neighbour.
Over and above all this, the village was afflicted with many sicknesses,
as is often the case just before spring; for at that time noxious
vapours rise up from the thawing ground. Smallpox swooped down first,
like a hawk on a brood of goslings, slaying the little ones. Both the
youngest children of the Voyt were taken, in spite of the doctors whom
he called in. Then the grown-ups were assailed by many diseases, and to
such an extent that in every other cabin someone lay moaning, in
expectation of the grave and trusting to the mercy of God. Dominikova
was overcharged with patients.—And, just then, the cows’ time for
calving came round, and many a woman was brought to bed: so that the
distress and confusion in the village became very great.
People were accordingly looking forward to spring with ever more and
more impatience. All were sure that, as soon as the snows had melted,
and the lands were thawed and dry, and the sun shone bright so that they
could go out to plough, all their trouble and distress would be over at
last.
But that year they remarked that the spring was slower to come than
usual. The rain never ceased, the ground thawed very slowly; and
besides—a bad sign, foreboding a long winter!—even now, the kine had not
begun to shed their hair.
Therefore, whenever there came a single hour of dry weather and radiant
sun, the villagers came swarming out of their huts and gazed up into the
sky and wondered whether this change would last at all. The old folk
basked in the bright beams to warm their tottering limbs, and all the
little ones ran out along the roads in noisy crowds, like colts let into
the meadows for the first time in spring.
How merry and jocund and full of glee they all were then!
The whole land lay in the genial warmth, and all the waters were bathed
in light; the ditches seemed brimful of molten sun; the ice on the pond,
washed by the rains, looked like a huge dish of blackened tinware; the
trees sparkled with yet undried dew; the furrow-streaked fields spread
out, quiet and dark of hue, but already inhaling the warmth, and swollen
with the springtide and the sparkling murmurous waters. The snows, too,
still unmelted here and there, shone with crude whiteness, like linen
laid out to bleach: the azure sky revealed its depths, hitherto veiled
in mists, and hidden under a web of gossamer, as it were; now the eyes
could sound its infinite blue fields, or glance over to the dark horizon
and the wavy outline of the woods.
And the world around was panting with joy; for such sweet spring odours
were wafted all about them that a cry of happiness gushed from the
hearts of men, and their souls aspired to soar upwards in the sunlight,
like those birds they saw coming from somewhere in the far-away east and
floating in the crystal air. Every man came out of doors with delight,
and took pleasure in talking, even with one who was no friend to him.
For at that moment all bickerings were done with, all quarrels appeased:
everyone felt full of loving-kindness towards everyone. Cries of
gladness echoed from hut to hut, and trilled through the balmy air.
Then did they throw the cabin-doors wide open, and remove the windows
from their clamped fastenings to let in the air; the women took their
spinning-gear outside, and even the babes were carried out in their
cradles to get some sunlight. From the byres, again and again, there
floated the anxious lowing of the kine; horses neighed, eager to quit
their stables; cocks crowed in the hedges, and dogs, barking wildly, ran
about like mad, and splashed with the children in the mud.
Their elders, staying within the enclosures, blinked in the dazzling
sunbeams, and looked with delight at the country round, all bathed in
splendour. Women chatted together over their orchard-fences, and their
voices resounded afar. They told how someone had heard the song of a
lark, how wagtails had been seen on the poplar road—and then another
caught sight of a string of wild geese far up in the sky, and half the
village ran out to look at them—and a third affirmed that storks had
already alighted on the flats by the mill. This was doubted, for March
had not yet begun its third week. And then a lad brought in the first
spray of blossoms, and ran with it round to every hut, where they
gloated over the pale clusters in deep admiration, as over some most
sacred thing.
So that illusory spell of warmth had made them all believe that spring
was at their gates, and that presently they would be ploughing their
fields. Their dismay and mortification were therefore all the more
intense, when they saw the sky suddenly clouded over, the sun quite
hidden from sight, all the brightness faded, the land darkened once
more, and a thin rain beginning to fall! With the coming of night, the
rain was followed by snow; and very shortly the village and its environs
were whitened over anew.
Things were again in their former state; and the subsequent days of
slush and mire and wet made them feel almost as though the past hours of
sunshine had been only a bright dream.
Whilst folks were spending their days in such hopes and desires, and
joys so soon doomed to disappointment, it was quite natural that Antek’s
conduct, the domestic troubles of Boryna, and all the rest—even to the
deaths which took place—should fall into forgetfulness, like a stone
flung into a deep lake: every man had enough worries of his own, and
scarcely knew how to bear them.
But the days rolled on, neither stopping nor hurrying, without end,
without commencement, as the waves of a great sea: hardly had they
opened their eyes and looked round, and taken note of a few things (how
few!), when twilight was there again, and night, and then another day
dawned with its own fresh troubles. And all was repeated once more, that
the will of God might be accomplished upon earth!
One day—it was about Mid-Lent—the weather was at its very worst. True,
only a drizzle of rain fell; but the worn-out folk were in a state of
extreme and bitter restlessness, moving to and fro as men possessed,
looking forth sullenly at their world covered with clouds so louring
that, as they swept bellying past, they brushed the tree-tops. All was
sad, cold, darksome, dripping with wet, and wringing every heart with
uncontrollable aversion. Nobody quarrelled with anyone that day; no one
cared for anything at all: everyone longed for some quiet nook where he
could lie down and think of nothing.
The whole day had been gloomy, as the eyes of a sick man who wakes,
glances round, and falls again to the darkness of lethargy. Scarcely had
the noonday Angelus rung, when a sullen rain-bearing wind rose and smote
upon the dark-hued shadowy cabins.
No one was out of doors. The gusts, with their quick flaws of rain,
swept shrieking over the mire, churning it up, and pelting the shaken
trees and the smirched walls as with handfuls of corn flung down: while
the pond was wrestling with the broken ice-pack, pounding and tossing on
its shores, with a growling gurgling rumble.
But on the evening of that same day, a rumour flew through the village
that the Squire was hewing down the peasants’ part of the forest!
At first, no one would believe it. The thing had not been attempted till
then: how could it be done now, when March was half over, the ground a
quagmire, and the trees swelling with sap?
True, men were at work in the forest; but, as all knew, it was quite
another sort of work.
And then the Squire, no matter what he was called, had never been called
a fool by anyone.
Could the man, then, be such a fool as to try floating the timber down
... in March?
All the same, the village was upset with this report, and doors banged,
and mud was waded through, and the news travelled from cabin to cabin.
They stood talking of it upon the highway, they went to think it over in
the tavern ... and also to question the Jew on the matter. But the
crafty “yellow one” swore he knew nothing whatever about it. A great
outcry was made, evil words were spoken, the women lamented, and public
indignation, fury, excitement and fear continued to increase.
Finally, old Klemba decided to get the news verified, and sent two of
his sons on horseback to the forest as scouts, in spite of the bad
weather.
It was long ere they returned. From every hut, someone went out to watch
the forest in the direction they had taken. But twilight had deepened
into darkness, and they were not yet back. The village was full of a
stillness, ominous of passions all the more dangerous because thus
reined in. Every soul was now smouldering with the fiercest animosity;
for, though no one quite believed this disastrous rumour to be true,
they all expected it might be confirmed; and many were the curses and
slammings of doors, as one after another went to see if the boys were
returning.
Kozlova bustled about everywhere, and upheld the truth of the rumour to
anyone that would listen to her talk, swearing by all the saints that
she had with her own eyes seen a good many acres of peasants’ forest
hewn down already. She appealed to Yagustynka, who had lately been very
much hand-in-glove with her, and of course confirmed her words, as
rejoicing in every broil and disturbance, the hag! And she then, having
picked up some more items of gossip at various places, went to carry
them to Boryna’s.
The lamp was just lit in the work-room; Yuzka was peeling potatoes,
Vitek assisting her; Yagna was busied in household duties. Somewhat
later, Boryna came in, and old Yagustynka told him of all she had heard,
with very many additions. He did not say one word to her in reply, but,
turning to Yagna, “Take a spade,” he said, “and go to help Pete; the
water must be let out of the orchard, or it will be pouring into the
potato-pits.—Off with you instantly, I say!” he cried.
Yagna mumbled some objections; but he gave her such a look that she had
to run out directly; he following her steps to overlook the work, and
soon audible, storming about the byre, the stable and the potato-pits.
“Is the old man always so cantankerous?” Yagustynka queried, raking up
the fire.
“He is,” Yuzka said, as she listened to his voice in fear.
It was the truth. Since he had taken back his wife—which he had done so
readily that folk wondered—he had altered beyond recognition. Always had
he been a hard man, and a stubborn; but now he had turned into stone.
Yes, he had taken her back, and without one word of reproach; only now
she was for him simply a serving-wench—nothing more. She had tried
endearments upon him: they had failed. Nor did her charms avail her any
more than peevishness, or those fits of petulance and tantrums, the
weapons of women against men. To them he paid no heed whatever, and
treated her as a stranger, and no wedded wife: so much so, that he no
longer troubled what she did, though perfectly aware that she still met
Antek.
He did not even watch over her. A few days after the “reconciliation,”
he had driven to town, returning only the next day; and folk whispered
that he had been at the notary’s and drawn some document or other; some
even surmising that he had revoked his deed of gift in Yagna’s favour.
As a matter of fact, none but Hanka knew the truth, and she kept it
dark. She was now in such favour with her father-in-law that he confided
everything he did to her. She saw him nearly every day, and the children
almost made their home there, often sleeping with their grandfather, who
loved them dearly.
Perhaps as a consequence of this change, Boryna’s health seemed to be
quite restored. He stooped no longer, as he had done of late; his glance
was again as proud as of old. But now he had become so choleric besides,
that he would fly out on the slightest provocation. His hand was heavy
on everybody, and when he laid it on anyone, that one must bend even to
the ground; and all things be done according to his will.
Not that he treated people unjustly; but gentleness was not in his line
any more. He had taken the reins into his own hands, and never let them
go for an instant. He kept a watchful eye on the stores, and yet more on
his pocket, doling out everything in person, and looking carefully to
prevent all waste. Harsh to everyone at home, he was especially so to
Yagna, never expressed himself as being pleased with her, and drove her
to work as they drive a lazy horse. No day passed without its squabble;
often, very often, his leather girdle came into play, or even something
still harder; for Yagna was possessed by a devil of contradiction, and
did her best to spite him.
Obey him she did, for she could not help it; and how could she resist?
“Who eats her husband’s bread must do her husband’s will.” But for one
sharp word of his she gave him ten. The cabin was really turned into a
hell; it seemed as if they both enjoyed making it so, each striving to
the uttermost, and eager to put the other down, both equally headstrong
and unyielding.
Dominikova quite unavailingly attempted to come between them and effect
a true reconciliation. It was out of the question: the feelings of
wrongs, of cruel treatment, and of mutual hatred rankled too deep within
their hearts.
All Boryna’s fondness had gone where last year’s springtide was. He had
only the lively remembrance of her betrayal, undying humiliation, and
absolutely implacable malice. Yagna’s mind, too, was very greatly
changed. She felt unspeakably miserable; but she had not yet admitted
that she was to blame! Her punishment was harder for her than it would
have been for others, because she was more affectionate of heart, had
been more delicately brought up, and was naturally daintier than most
women.
And she suffered, Lord! how terribly!
True, she employed every means to vex her husband, never gave way unless
under compulsion, and defended herself tooth and nail; but daily the
yoke grew heavier and heavier; it galled her to the quick, and there was
no escape. Many a time she had wanted to return to her mother, but the
latter was so strongly opposed to such a step that she threatened to
send her back to her husband by force, at the end of a rope!
What, then, was she to do? She could not take up the attitude so many
women in her position take, willingly supporting hell at home for
pleasure with sweethearts, full and free: a fight every day, and a
reconciliation when night comes round.
No, that would have been too loathsome to her. Yet her present state was
growing steadily more and more insupportable, and her craving for
something new—she knew not what—increased as steadily.
She gave Boryna spite for spite. Nevertheless, she lived in continual
terror, oppressed by such a sense of injustice and such bitter sorrow
that she often wept for whole nights, watering her pillow with tears;
while by day those perpetual brawls and conflicts were not infrequently
so hateful to her that she only dreamed of fleeing away somewhither—far,
far away!
Somewhither! Aye, but whither?
Yes, the world stretched wide around her; but that world—it was such an
appalling, unknown, unfathomable vagueness that the mere thought of it
frightened her to death.
It was this which still drew her towards Antek, though what she felt was
not so much love as terror and despair. In that fearful night, when she
had fled to her mother’s, something within her had burst and perished,
so to speak; and now she could no longer fly to him with her whole
heart, as she had done before; no more could she run to him at every
call with joyfully beating heart. She went only from a sense of
necessity—because the cabin was dull and wearisome, because she hated
her husband—because she fancied that her former immense love might
perhaps come to life again. In her inmost heart she felt bitter against
him. Her present wretched position, the hard life she was leading now,
her blighted reputation—all were due to him; and, moreover, she realized
the fact that he was not that which she had adored, and she knew the
fierce pangs of disenchantment and disillusion. He had formerly seemed
to her quite another being—one whose fondness lifted her up to heaven,
whose kindness overmastered her—the sweetest, dearest being in all the
world. And now she saw he was just the same as any other peasant. Worse,
indeed; for she was more afraid of him than even of her husband. He
frightened her by his dark moods, by his fits of desolation, and, above
all, by his reckless violence. He made her tremble, for he was, in her
eyes, wild and fierce as a forest outlaw. Why, the priest himself had
rebuked him publicly in church; the whole village had shrank away from
him, and now pointed him out as the worst amongst them; and there
proceeded out of him such an exhalation of mortal sin that the mere
sound of his voice often made her faint with dread: it seemed to her as
though Satan dwelt in him, and as if around him there hovered all the
host of hell. At those moments she had such impressions as when his
Reverence told the people about the awful torments of the lost!
Not for one instant did it come home to her that she had part in his
guilt: not in the least! When she thought of him, it was but to mourn
that he had so greatly changed, and her feelings on that score became so
strong that she cared for him ever less and less. At times, when
embraced by him, she would stiffen suddenly, as if struck dead by a
thunderbolt. She let him kiss her—for how could she resist such a dragon
of a man? Moreover, she felt young, full-blooded, of lively temperament
... and his kisses were so violent, they well-nigh choked her. So, in
spite of all, she would still give him her love with the mighty
elemental craving of the earth that thirsts eternally for warm rain and
sunshine; but yet her inner self was no more at his feet, driven by that
former uncontrollable impulse; she was no more given up to that blind
rapture which once upon a time had made her feel nigh death; she was
nevermore again to be so frantically lovesick. At such times, her
thoughts would fly to the hut, to her work, to some new invention to
spite her husband; and at times she even thought: “When will this man
leave me and go away?”
These thoughts about him were in her mind as she was working to keep the
water out of the potato-pits. Her work was only for the eye, and as in
duty bound. Pete toiled with a will, battling noisily with the mud and
the frozen earth; she worked that Boryna might see her. No sooner had he
left the place than she put her apron over her head, and went cautiously
round to the stile, close to Ploshka’s barn.
There stood Antek.
“I have been waiting an hour for you,” he said reproachfully.
“No need to wait at all, if they want you anywhere,” she rapped out, in
no pleasant humour.
He caught her in a powerful grasp, and gave her a kiss. She turned from
him in disgust.
“Ye reek of vodka like a barrel of the same.”
“Are ye so dainty that my lips offend you now?”
“’Twas but the vodka that I had in mind,” she answered in a gentler
tone.
“I was here yestereve. Wherefore did ye not come?”
“It was cold; and besides, I am over head and ears in work.”
“And you have to fondle the old man,” Antek growled, “and tuck him up in
bed!”
“Why not?” she replied testily. “He is my husband.”
“Yagna, do not provoke me!”
“If my words vex you, why come at all? Think not that I shall weep for
you!”
“Ah, that means you do not care to come any more.”
“Not if I am to be treated as a dog, and always chid.”
“Yagna, I have so many troubles of my own that ’tis no great wonder if a
harsh word drops from me now and then; but I mean no offence,” he said
humbly, gathering her in his arms. She, however, remained frigid and
sulky, and only unwillingly returned his kisses. At every word she
spoke, she looked around, seeking to go home.
This he was not slow to note, and a nettle thrust into his bosom would
not have stung him more. He whispered, in a tone of timid reproach:
“You were not always in such a hurry!”
“I am afraid. All the people are at home: perhaps they will come out to
look for me.”
“Aye, aye! But there was a time when you did not fear to stay out all
night. Oh, how you have changed!”
“Nonsense! What should have changed me?”
They were silent, each embracing the other, and sometimes with a closer
hug of sudden fondness which the memory of past times called up; and
they sought each other’s lips with strong desire of love. But it would
not do. Their souls were drifting farther and farther apart; each
harboured bitter grudges against the other, and their wounds rankled so
that their arms instinctively fell to their sides. They stood close, but
like pillars of ice together; while words of tenderness and passion rose
to their lips (but went no farther and died unuttered), their hearts
were throbbing with sharp pain.
“Yagna,” he said, very low, “do you love me?”
“Why, I have already told you I cannot always come when you call,” she
answered evasively; and yet she pressed closer to him—feeling sorry,
regretful, almost ready to ask his pardon with tears for not being able
to love him any more. He read her meaning; and her words chilled him to
the marrow, and he quivered with the pang they gave him; resentment
burst out in his heart, and with it came reproaches and invectives which
he could not choke down, and a torrent of angry words.
“You are a living lie! They all have fallen away from me, and so have
you!—Love me? Aye, even as a dog that bares its teeth to bite loves me!
Yes, I have seen through you clearly, and this I know: if folk were
minded to slay me, you’d be the first to lend a rope; if to stone me,
you’d throw the first stone!”
“Antek!” she cried, aghast.
“Be still, and hear me out!” he said sternly. “I have spoken the
truth.... And since it has come to this—well, then, there now is naught
in the world that I care for!”
“I must be off; they are calling me,” she stammered, alarmed and trying
to make her escape. But he seized her arm, so that she could not move,
and went on in harsh menacing tones:
“This, moreover, do I tell you ... for you have not then sense to see it
for yourself: If I have fallen so low as this, it is through you—mark
well—through you!... Because of you, the priest has rebuked me and
driven me from the church! Because of you, the whole village shrinks
from me as from one smitten with the plague.... I have borne all ...
all.... Nor did I take revenge when he—that father of mine—gave into
your hands so much of the land that’s my own!... And now—now—_you_
loathe me! Aye, turn and writhe and twist it as you will, you lie!—You
are like the rest of them, you look on me as they do, and fear me as if
I were a robber or a slayer of men!
“What you want is another man: nay, ye would have them all at your heels
... like dogs in the springtime—you!” he screamed, beside himself with
rage. And then he overwhelmed her with the agonies and the venomous
thoughts he had fed on for so long, making her responsible for all, and
cursing her for his sufferings, until at last his anger choked his voice
and maddened him so, that he rushed upon her with uplifted fists. But,
stopping short just in time, he flung her back against the wall—and
strode off!
“O Lord!—Antek!” she cried, realizing all at once what he meant; and,
darting after him, she put her arms round his neck in despair. But he
cast her off as one shakes off a leech, and hastened away without a
word; while she fell to the ground, crushed and broken as if the whole
universe had fallen upon her.
After some time, however, she came in some sort to her senses; but the
feeling of deep injustice she had suffered and of the wrong undergone
was so keen in her that her heart was broken with grief. She felt
herself suffocating, and wanted to cry out to the whole world that she
was blameless and had done no evil!
She called aloud after him, although his steps were no longer to be
heard; she lifted up her voice, but in vain.
Her deep distress, her heartfelt sorrow, and the dull, crushing,
terribly cruel thought that he might possibly never return to her,
together with her dead fondness that had come to life again, all
descended upon her now, with a tremendous weight of unappeasable
torment; and she wept loudly as she walked home, caring not who might
hear her.
In the porch she met Klemba’s son, who only just peeped into the cabin,
shouting: “They are cutting down our forest!” and hurried on to the next
hut.
The news spread like wildfire through Lipka, and gripped all hearts,
filling them with fierce anger. Men ran through the village with the
news, so fast that doors were opening and slamming every instant.
Truly, it was a matter of life and death to the villagers, and of such
evil import that they were all at once struck dumb—or, rather,
thunderstruck. They walked in fear, on tiptoe, spoke in whispers,
looking with apprehension at one another, and listening likewise. No one
cried out yet, nor complained aloud, nor broke out into curses. The
thing was overwhelming, they all knew, and of the greatest moment—one in
which women’s babbling could do nothing. What was required was wise
determination and resolve on the part of the whole community.
It was late; but no one cared to go to bed now. Some had left their
supper unfinished, the household work unaccomplished. The roads were
full of people, as were also the cabin surroundings. Men walked about on
the banks of the pond, and their subdued whispers and mutterings were
audible in the twilight as the buzzing of angry bees.
And now the weather was better; the rain had stopped, the sky had
cleared up a little; flocks of clouds were moving across the sky, and on
the earth a chilly wind blew, freezing the ground, and whitening with
hoarfrost the black skeletons of the trees. The voices, too, though not
loud, were now more distinctly heard.
It was at once known in the village that a number of peasant-landowners
had assembled and gone in a body to see the Voyt.
There was Vinciorek, with Gregory, called the Lame One; they saw Michael
Caban, passing along with Franek Bylitsa, cousin to Hanka’s father; and
Soho too, and also Valek the Wry-mouthed; likewise Joseph Vahnik,
Casimir Sikora—even time-honoured Ploshka. Only Boryna was seen by none;
though they said he was there, too.
The Voyt was not in; he had that very afternoon driven over to
head-quarters on official business; so they all assembled at Klemba’s,
followed by multitudes, women and children among them. But they made the
door fast and let no one in. Voytek, the son of Klemba, had orders to
watch the road and tavern, lest a gendarme should by chance show his
face in the village....
Round the cabin, filling the farm-yard, and even the road beyond it,
folk came in throngs together, all wondering what decision those elders
of theirs would come to. They were taking counsel, and at great
length—but with most secret deliberation. Only their hoary heads were
visible through the windows, forming a semicircle around the glowing
hearth; Klemba stood on one side, holding forth about ... no one knew
what: stooping now and then, and smiting at times on the table.
Those outside grew every minute more impatient; and at length Kobus and
Kozlova, and more than one farm-labourer, began to murmur and talk
openly against the men in counsel, saying that they would decide nothing
of any good for the people; that they were men who cared only for
themselves, and would readily come to terms with the manor, letting
everybody else be ruined!
Kobus, along with the _Komorniki_ and the poorer people, became so
excited that he advised them outright to pay no attention to what the
elders would decide, but think of themselves and take some energetic
step before their rights had been sold.
Matthew then appeared, and proposed that they should go round to the
tavern, where they might advise together in freedom—not like dogs
barking outside other people’s windows.
The idea pleased them, and all went together to the tavern.
The Jew had put out the lights, but they made him open the place again.
He eyed in terror the crowd that poured in, though they were quiet
enough, occupying every bench, table and corner of the big room, talking
in groups, and waiting for someone to speak first to the meeting.
Plenty were willing; but they all held back, with looks of hesitation.
And then Antek sprang forward in their midst, and furiously denounced
the manor.
His words impressed them certainly, but they looked askance at the man,
and eyed him with distrustful side-glances; some even turned their
backs. The memory of the priest’s words in church, and of Antek’s wicked
life, was too fresh in their minds.—But he cared nothing for that: he
was possessed by a spirit of recklessness and a savage lust of fighting;
and he wound up by crying at the top of his voice:
“Boys, do not give in, do not be cravens, do not surrender your rights!
To-day it is the forest they are wresting from you: fail to defend it,
and to-morrow they will grab at your lands, at your homesteads, at all
you have! Who will prevent them? Who will cry: ‘Hands off?’”
His words struck home. A low growl went through the room; the crowd
surged violently to and fro, with wild eyes flashing fire. A hundred
fists were lifted up, and a hundred throats thundered forth: “We will!
We will!” till the tavern-walls shook to the din.
It was this that the leaders were waiting for. At once Matthew, Kobus
and Kozlova rushed forward, shrieking, cursing, and ruffling up the
spirits of the men so, that the place was presently resounding with a
confused noise of war-cries, imprecations, fists smiting the tables, and
the fierce boisterous uproar of an angry mob.
Everyone shouted his opinion, everyone had his own plan that all must
follow.
The tumult increased, and threatened to degenerate into brawling; for
the men were growing quarrelsome, and wreaked their resentment for the
wrong done them on those nearest at hand. Nor could they agree on
anything to be done; for no one there had authority enough to put
himself at their head and avenge them.
Little by little, they broke up into groups, with the loudest talker
amongst them laying down his opinion.
“Why, they have hewn down half the forest—oak-trees of such a size that
five men could not clasp them!”
“All this the son of Klemba has seen!”
“And they are going to cut down the rest, without asking your leave!”
Kozlova shrieked, pressing forward to the bar.
“The manor-folk have always oppressed us.”
“Why not? Let them drive you, if you are silly enough sheep to allow
them.”
“We must not, we must not!—Let’s all go out together, drive off the
woodmen, and take back our forest!”
“And slay the oppressor!”
“Yea, let him be slain!”
Fists rose into the air with defiant gestures, a deafening shout was
raised, and the whole multitude breathed hate and revenge. When the
noise had subsided, Matthew, standing at the bar, cried to his friends:
“We, village folk, are pressed together as fish caught in a net: the
manor-lands, stretching out on all sides, squeeze the life out of
us.—Would ye send your cows to grass? Ye cannot for the
manor-lands.—Would ye give your horses to eat? No, the manor-lands are
there!—Ye cannot throw a stone but it falls on the manor-lands ... and
ye are taken to the court—sentenced—fined—imprisoned!”
“True! true it is!” a chorus of voices assented. “If there is anywhere a
good meadow, giving an aftermath, it belongs to the manor; the very best
fields are the manor’s; and all the woods are theirs also.”
“And we—the people—have barren sands to till, dried dung to burn in our
stoves ... and are waiters on Providence!”
“Take their woods, take their lands away from them! We will not give up
what is ours!”
Thus they cried out for a long time, rolling to and fro in a waving
mass, cursing and threatening furiously. All this was tiring to the
throat and heated them, so several went to refresh themselves at the
bar; and others, remembering that they had gone without supper, called
to the Jew for bread and a herring.
Now when they had eaten and drunk, their excitement lessened greatly,
and they began to withdraw, without having decided on any course of
action.
Matthew, along with Kobus and Antek (who had stood apart all the time,
lost in certain very dark thoughts of his own), then went over to
Klemba’s and, finding the man at home, arranged for something to be done
on the morrow in concert with him: after which they retired.
It was dead of night, the lights were all out, and the village silent,
with nothing to break the stillness but the rustling of the trees—of the
frost-bedight trees, swaying, tossing and reeling, and striking each
other, like foes in a battle. The cold was pretty severe, the hedges
were clad in a pattern of lace; but far above, to the north, no stars
were seen, and the sky was dark and sombre. So the night crept on, long,
wearisome, filling everyone with misgivings and disquiet, with terrible
dreams and nightmares, and fevered shadowy visions.
But as soon as ever it began to dawn, and men to raise their heavy
slumberous heads, and open their dim eyes, Antek ran round to the belfry
and tolled the alarm-bell.
Ambrose and the organist would have prevented him, but could not; he
loaded them with curses, was near beating them, and went on ringing and
swinging.
The bell tolled slowly, dolefully, dismally; terror fell on everyone;
people on every side rushed out in dismay, half clad, and wondering what
had befallen, stood outside their huts as if petrified. The day was
breaking; the solemn and sonorous notes still continued to be heard,
while the frightened birds winged their way to the forest, and the
people, full of evil forebodings, crossed themselves and set their faces
hard; for Matthew, Kobus and his mates were scouring the village,
beating on the fences with their staves and crying:
“To the wood! To the wood! Come, all of you! The meeting is in front of
the tavern.—To the wood!”
They dressed in the utmost haste, some buttoning themselves and saying
their morning prayers on their way; and all were soon at the
trysting-place, where stood Klemba and some other peasant-landowners.
The road, and the hedgerows, and all the yards and premises in the
neighbourhood, were presently swarming with people. Children made a
great noise, and women screamed in the orchards, and the confusion and
tumult and uproar were such as a fire in the village might cause.
“To the wood!—Let every man set out with any weapon he has—scythe or
flail or bar of wood or ax: ’tis all one!”
And the cry, “To the wood!” echoed all through the place.
By this time it was broad day—fair, bright and frosty, with a web of
gossamer woven over the trees, and the frozen puddles in the roads
crackling underfoot and breaking with a thin sound as of splintered
glass. The bracing air smelt keen and sharp in the nostrils, and carried
afar the noise of the tumult and shouting.
These, however, died away slowly, for everyone was prepared to act; a
sense of grim, stubborn, relentless strength and assurance had hardened
every mind with its harsh commanding power.
The crowd, increasing, had now filled all the open space between the
tavern and the high road, and stood in serried ranks, shoulder to
shoulder.
Each greeted his friends in silence; everyone stood where he could find
place, looking about him patiently, or at the elders, who now arrived
with Boryna.
This was the first man among them all; he was their only leader: without
him, not one farmer would have moved an inch.
They stood there, still, attentive, like a forest of pine-trees, closely
crowded, that listens to hear the voices within its own depths. Now and
again a word was uttered, or a fist would shoot upwards; then their eyes
would gleam, a wave of restlessness sweep over them, a face or two flush
crimson; and then they once more stood motionless.
The blacksmith came in hot haste, trying to hold the people back, and
deter them from their intent by the fear of results—ruin and chains for
the whole village; and the miller spoke to the same effect. No one
listened to them. Both were well known to be in the pay of the manor;
opposition was their business.
Roch, too, came and besought them with unavailing tears.
And, at last, the priest himself appeared, and began to speak to them.
But even to him they paid no heed. They stood unmoved; no one kissed his
hand, no one even doffed his cap to him. Someone went so far as to cry
aloud:
“Preaching is his livelihood!”
And another added, sneering:
“Our wrongs are not to be redressed with a sermon!”
So ominously louring were their faces that the priest burst into tears
as he looked at them; yet he did not give up, but conjured them, by all
they held most sacred, to return to their homes. It was useless; he was
forced to be silent and go; for Boryna had come upon the scene, and they
had eyes only for him.
Matthias was pale, stern and cold outwardly; but his eyes had the glint
of a wolf’s. He walked erect, sombre but decided, nodding to his
acquaintances, and looking round upon the people. They made way for him,
and he stepped on to the pile of logs in front of the tavern. But,
before he spoke, voices in the crowd were raised:
“Lead us on, Matthias! lead us on!”
“On! on to the forest!”
When these cries had ceased, he bowed and, stretching forth his arms,
spoke with a mighty voice:
“Ye Christian people, Poles, lovers of justice, whether husbandmen or
_Komorniki_!—We have all been injured, and in such fashion as we can
neither support nor forgive! The manor-folk are cutting down our forest
... yes, those same manor-folk who will give no work to any man amongst
us ... those manor-folk who do all they can to harry us and drive us to
ruin! Who can remember all the injuries and grievances and ill treatment
our folk have suffered from them? We have appealed to justice: to what
purpose? We have brought complaints: how have they been dealt
with?—Well, the measure is filled: they are hewing down our forest. Men,
shall we permit that too?”
“Never, never! Let us drive them off, let us slay them!” they answered
him. Their faces were livid, but gleamed darkly, as a thunder-cloud with
lightning-flashes: a hundred fists were shaken in the air, and a hundred
indignant throats were clamorous.
“We have,” Boryna went on to say, “we have our rights, and no one
respects them: the forest is ours, and they cut it down! What, then, are
we to do, we who are bereft of all help? For none in the world will do
us justice. None!—Dear people, Christians, Poles, I tell you that there
is now naught to be done save this one thing: defend by ourselves that
which is our own property; go in a body, and forbid them to hew our
forest down.—All! One and all! let us go, we, the inhabitants of
Lipka—all save the cripples!—And, good friends, fear ye nothing: we have
for us our rights, our will to assert them, and the justice of our
cause. And, moreover, they cannot send a whole village to prison.—So
come with me, men; be strong and courageous; come with me—to the
forest!” he shouted in a voice of thunder.
“To the forest!” they all roared in reply. The crowd broke up, and every
man ran home shouting. There was an interval of confused preparation,
while they made ready: horses neighed, children screamed, men swore,
women bewailed themselves; but in a very short time, all were on their
way to the poplar road, where Boryna, in his sledge, was waiting,
together with Ploshka, Klemba and the other foremost men in Lipka.
All fell into line as they came—peasant-owners, labourers, and even a
few women and youngsters: some in sledges, some on horseback, some in
carts; but the rest (nearly all the village) trudged on foot, forming a
dense mass, like a long field of waving rustling corn, with the women’s
red garments for poppies, and, for the awns, bristling with good stout
stakes and rusty pitchforks, with here and there a scythe, flashing
brightly. The folk went out as if to reap—but not now with gay laughter
and merry jokes. They stood silent, grim, relentless, ready for any
encounter. And presently Boryna got into his sledge, eyed the people
once more, and made the sign of the cross:
“In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
Amen!”
“Amen, amen!” they repeated.—At that moment, they heard a tinkling bell,
telling them that the priest had just begun mass. They crossed
themselves, took off their caps, smote their breasts, some of them
uttering a pious sigh, as they marched on in regular formation, strong
silent men—almost all Lipka. But the blacksmith had slunk away somewhere
amongst the hedges, and, creeping back to his hut, leaped on to his
horse to take a straight cut to the manor. As for Antek, who had, ever
since his father appeared, withdrawn into the tavern, he procured a gun
from Yankel, and as soon as the march began, hid it beneath his
sheepskin, and made direct for the woods through the fields, without so
much as casting a glance at the men of Lipka.
These were following Boryna as fast as they could: he drove foremost of
all.
After him came the Ploshka families, who dwelt in three separate cabins,
and Staho was their leader: a weakly-looking crew, but loud of tongue,
and noisy, and self-assured.
Then all the Soha kinsmen, led on by Simon the Soltys.
The Vahnik tribe marched next—short thin fellows all of them, but fierce
as hornets.
In the fourth line walked the Golombs, with Matthew at their head: few
in number, but such stalwart men and plucky fighters, they were as good
as half a village.
The Sikora family came next: thickset as tree-stumps, and sturdy men,
but great grumblers.
Klemba’s kin now advanced, and a host of striplings with them: tall
young men, always fond of squabbles.—Over them was Gregory, brother to
the Voyt.
And many another, too, brought up the rear, whose names were too many to
mention.
Under their ponderous tread, the earth shook. The troop went forward,
with dark and ominous faces; like a hail-cloud, bearing thunderbolts in
its womb, showing a flash now and then, and, when it bursts, destroying
all beneath it.
So they passed out; and then, how great was the lamentation of those
left behind them at home!
The forest was standing, as yet torpid after the cold of the night, full
of a drowsy stupor, and swathed in a mist of clotted opaqueness.
The woodland lay quiet, immersed in frost. The dawn reddened the
tree-tops faintly, and fell here and there in streaks over the pallid
snows below.
But, in Vilche Doly, there were heard, again and yet again, the
thundering sound of falling trees, the clipping strokes of the axes, the
harsh rough throbbing of the saws.
They were felling the forest!
Over forty men, hard at work, like a flock of woodpeckers, were
assailing the trees, hacking at them with persistent fury. These fell,
one after another, and the open space grew wider, as the fallen giants
lay humbled to the ground, in longer and longer rows. Only in some
places did a slender stripling, spared for seedlings, rise up in the
midst of this desolation, as a tall thistle lifts its head over the
lonely plain. But it seemed to stoop and mourn pitifully for its slain
brothers.—The brushwood, too, that had been left untouched, and a few
stunted trees which the ax had not deigned to sacrifice, also looked as
though weeping over the dead. All round, upon the sheets of trampled
snow, as if laid out to be wrapped in their shrouds, stiff and stark lay
the murdered trees, and the heaps which had been their limbs, and the
lopped crowns of the mighty trunks stripped of their boughs, like
mangled mutilated corpses: while streams of yellow sawdust—the blood of
the slaughtered forest, as it were—were sinking into the snow.
In a circle about the cleared space, like men standing around an open
grave, towered the thick unbroken forest, multitudinous and lofty, as
friends and kinsmen might stand around, drooping, sorrowful, with
muffled sighs, listening to the thudding falls, and gazing in dull
bewilderment at this harvest reaped by inexorable Fate!
With never a pause, the wood-cutters went onward. Slowly, in one long
line, they worked their way into the wood, which barred the way with its
seemingly indestructible wall of close-set trunks. Its immensity
swallowed them up; they were lost in the shade of its branches; but
their axes glittered through the gloom, and they hacked away tirelessly,
and the stridulous uninterrupted rasping of the saws went on. Every now
and then a tree would totter, and suddenly—like a bird caught in a
snare—fall apart from its fellows and, tossing its arm wildly, crash
down to the earth with a death-cry. And so another would fall, and a
score, and scores upon scores!
There fell enormous pine-trees, green with the moss of age; and firs,
arrayed in their dark verdure, and spruces with their many outspread
arms; oak-trees, too, fell, with dry russet leaves still upon them, and
overgrown with gray lichens as with beards—ancients of the forest that
the thunderbolt would not blast, and the lapses of centuries had failed
to crumble, now succumbed to the ax! And of other and meaner trees, who
can say which and how many were laid low?
Groaning, the forest was slowly giving up its life as the trees fell:
though these were like brave men in a battle, who, packed close and
propped up one by another, fall little by little, giving way only to
resistless might, and without a cry topple over into the jaws of death
by whole ranks at a time.
Dull moans rose up; the earth vibrated continuously under the impact of
felled trees; the axes went on smiting, the saws sawed without ceasing,
while the whistling of the boughs, rushing athwart the air, pierced the
ears like dying gasps.
So the work continued, hour after hour, with fresh booty won from the
wood; the glade was all strewn with trunks, and the ax and saw were
successful.
A few magpies perched and screamed upon the young trees spared for
seedlings; a flock of crows would sometimes fly with harsh croaks over
the field of death. Or else a roebuck would peer out from some thicket
and, looking forth, gaze with bright eyes at the plumes of smoke wafted
upwards from the fires in the clearing and at the down-crashing trees;
but when it saw men there, it fled with a bleating cry.
The men hewed and sawed, like wolves that have cornered a flock of
sheep, which—huddled close, stupefied with fear, and bleating
pitifully—await the moment when the throat of the last of them shall be
torn out.
It was only after their breakfast, when the sun had risen so high that
the hoarfrost began to melt, and a few shafts of golden light penetrated
the woodlands—only then did a far-off hubbub come to their ears.
“There are people coming this way, and in numbers,” someone said,
putting his ear to a trunk.
The sound came nearer and nearer. Soon they could make out shouts and
the dull trampling of many feet. About the space of an Ave Maria later,
a sledge appeared on the way that led from the village. It entered the
clearing at once. Boryna was standing up in it; and in his rear—on
horseback, on foot, and in wagons—a great crowd of men, women and
youngsters came dashing forward with a cry, to attack the wood-cutters.
Leaping down, Boryna ran forward at their head; all the others pressed
close behind him, armed with their various weapons—brandishing
pitchforks, flashing scythes, wielding flails with brawny arms. Some had
only a branch to fight with, and the women less still—only their nails
and their invectives!—And down they all swooped upon the affrighted
wood-cutters.
“Away from the forest! ’Tis ours: ye shall not fell it!” they shouted
all at the same time, and no man could make out what they wanted. But
Boryna came up to the men, and called out in a voice like a trumpet:
“Men of Modlitsa, of Rzepki, and whencesoever ye come from: listen!”
There was a pause, and then he cried out:
“Take your belongings and tools, and go hence, and God be with you!—We
forbid you to cut down our forest; and he that shall not obey will find
us all ready to make him!”
No one opposed: the sight of that furious crowd, grim-visaged, with
flails and pitchforks and scythes, overawed them. They cried to one
another to give over, thrust their axes into their girdles, and pressed
together—an angry muttering throng. The men of Rzepki especially, being
of gentle blood, and having been besides for centuries at feud with
their neighbours of Lipka, could not refrain from cursing aloud, shaking
their axes, with promises of vengeance. But, however unwillingly, they
yielded to superior force, while the Lipka folk followed them to the
edge of the forest, threatening and shouting.
Others ran meantime about the clearing to put out the fires and throw
down the piles of timber which had begun to rise; the women (Kozlova
leading them), having seen at the edge of the clearing several boarded
huts which had been set up, hastened to tear them down, and cast them
about the woodland, that nothing of them might remain.
The woodmen having been so easily put to flight, Boryna called the
farmers round him, urging them to come with him to the Squire and warn
him against laying a finger on the forest until the law-courts should
have decided what was to belong to the peasants. But ere they had
settled what they should say, shrill screams were heard, and the women
came fleeing away in great haste. Hard on a score of horsemen had
entered on the scene, and were riding them down.
Notice had been given to the manor, which had accordingly at once
dispatched these men to protect the wood-cutters.
The steward was riding at the head of a lot of farm-servants. They made
straight for the clearing and, falling upon the women whom they met
first, set to horsewhipping them soundly. The steward, a burly wild-ox
sort of man, rode first at them, shouting:
“Ah, the thieves, the lousy thieves! Thrash ’em! Bind ’em! To jail with
’em!”
“Rally, rally round me, boys! Stand up to them!” roared Boryna. His men,
panic-stricken, had begun to run; but at the sound of his voice they
flew to his side, protecting their heads with their arms as they ran.
“Cudgel those sons of dogs, and keep your flails for the horses!” Boryna
commanded, and, wild with fury, snatching up a stake at hand, rushed
forward, striking hard and aiming well. And after him, like a wood
shaken by some angry blast, the peasants charged on in close order,
pitchforks and flails almost touching, and uttered a terrible cry as
they dashed in amongst the manor servants; they smote and lunged boldly,
and their flails rattled and clattered as handfuls of peas flung down on
a wooden flooring.
A horrible uproar arose, with fearful oaths, and the whinnying of
belaboured horses, and the groans of wounded men, and the hoarse noises
of the struggling, and the battle-cries!
The manor people held out stoutly, with imprecations and blows as
vigorous as those of the peasants; but at last they were forced back in
confusion: under the strokes of the flails, the horses reared, squealing
shrilly with pain, and fled with their riders. The steward, perceiving
this, made his horse stand upright, broke into the mass of Boryna’s men,
and made for their leader. But this was his last effort: a score of
flail-strokes were aimed at him, as many foes closed upon him instantly,
and as many hands seized him, pulling him off his horse. Tossed like a
bush that a spade has uprooted, he flew into the air, to come down on
the snow at their feet, insensible. With difficulty Boryna protected
him, and dragged him off into a place of safety.
All then became a whirling mass of men; the tumult was ear-splitting,
and the eddying mingled throng so dense that nothing could be made out,
save tangled groups of fighters, rolling in the snow—fists lifted and
falling in passionate exasperation—and sometimes one or another would
burst from the scrimmage and run madly away for a few yards—only to run
back to the fight again, shouting and raging as before.
There were hand-to-hand fights, there were mass attacks; men were seized
by the throat or by the hair of the head, and they tore at each other
like wild beasts. Yet neither could get the upper hand. The manor
servants, having alighted from their horses, gave ground no longer; the
woodmen, besides, now came to their help with sturdy assistance: the men
of Rzepki especially were foremost, rushing to their rescue in silence,
like savage dogs that only bite. Moreover, the leader of them all was
now the forester, who had but just arrived: a man of gigantic size, who
dearly loved a fight, and had, besides, many a bone to pick with the
Lipka folk. He darted onward, fighting alone against multitudes,
cracking their skulls with the butt of his gun, and making them fly on
every side: a scourge to them all, and a terror.
Staho Ploshka stood firm to stay his advance, for the people was already
beginning to flee before him; but, seized by the throat, whirled in air,
and dashed down like a sheaf of threshed corn, he remained unconscious
on the ground.—One of the Vahniks then leaped forward and brought down
his flail on the giant’s shoulder with a smashing blow—only to get such
a hit between the eyes that he called out, “Jesus!” and, opening his
arms wide, fell stunned.
Now could Matthew bear it no longer, and came up to attack him. Yet,
although in physical strength not inferior to Antek, he could not
withstand the forester for a minute. This one was far the stronger, and
beat him, and rolled him in the snow, and forced him to take to his
heels: after which, he made for Boryna. But, ere he could reach him, he
was assailed by a host of women, who flung themselves on him with
shrieks, clawed his face, pulled out his hair by handfuls, and, piling
themselves one upon the other, bore him to the earth along with them:
like a lot of curs attacking a shepherd’s dog, plunging their fangs in
his flesh, and dragging him this way and that way.
Thenceforth did the Lipka folk begin to have the upper hand. Both
parties were in close conflict, mingled like fallen leaves; and each man
chose his opponent, throttling and lugging him through the snow: while
the women hung on the flanks of the battle, and tore at the enemies’
hair.
And now the confusion was such that one could scarcely distinguish
friend from foe.... In the end, the manor servants were beaten
completely. Some lay bleeding; some, sorely bruised and exhausted, made
off through the forest. Only the woodmen defended themselves to the
uttermost; for certain amongst them had begged for mercy, which the
people, still more exasperated against them than against those from the
manor, and inflamed with anger as a resin-torch burning in a gale, were
but little disposed to grant, and thrashed them most unmercifully.
Sticks and flails and pitchforks were now thrown aside, and they
wrestled together, man to man, fist to fist, brute strength pitted
against brute strength; crushing, tearing, wallowing on the ground! And
there was no longer any noise of cries, but only low groans, curses, and
the panting of the stubborn fight.
A tremendous day it was, a day of wrath.
The people seemed to have lost their heads, so greatly were they all
infuriated by conflict. Kobus in particular, and Kozlova, looked like
demented creatures, horrible to see, covered with blood and bruises, yet
still attacking any number of enemies single-handed.
So the men of Lipka now set up a mighty cry, and rushed together to
assault those who still resisted, one of them now putting to flight ten
enemies, and following on the heels of those who fled.—Just then the
forester, who had by now freed himself from the women’s attack, but was
very sore and all the more furious, shouted to rally his men. At the
same instant, perceiving Boryna, he flew at him! Each grappled the other
with a formidable hug, like two bears at odds, pushing, swaying,
striking one another against the trees of the forest, at the verge of
which they had arrived....
It was then that Antek came up; he had been much delayed on his way,
though he had hurried so that he was forced to rest awhile to take
breath, and also to see how things fared with his father.
The forester had the advantage. True, it was no easy matter, for he was
much exhausted, and the old man fought a good fight. Again and again,
both fell down, and rolled about like rival dogs, and bruised each other
on the ground. But Boryna now was more and more frequently undermost;
his cap had fallen off, and his white head was again and again battered
against the gnarled roots of the trees.
Antek glanced round a second time, drew the gun from under his
sheepskin, crouched down to take aim, and—crossing himself
mechanically!—levelled the weapon at his father’s head! But before he
could pull the trigger, both combatants had risen to their feet, Antek
rose likewise, and his barrel pointed straight at his father.... But no
shot came.—A sense of unspeakable horror had entered his heart: he could
hardly draw breath for the pain of it. His hands shook as with an ague;
all his body trembled; a mist veiled his eyes. Then, suddenly, a short
piercing shriek burst forth.
“Killed! I’m killed!”
The forester had just clubbed Boryna with his gunstock. The blood
spurted; the old man threw up his arms and fell headlong to the ground.
Antek, flinging his gun away, sprang to his father’s side, whose breath
rattled in his throat. The skull was terribly injured; he still was
alive, but his eyes stared glassily, and his feet moved with continuous
jerks.
“My father! O Jesus! my father!” he exclaimed at the top of his voice.
Taking up the insensible body, he pressed it to his bosom, and cried
again, in tones of despair:
“My father! they have slain him ... slain him!” And his voice was the
howl of a wild beast that has lost her cubs.
Several men who were close by came to Boryna’s aid, placed him upon a
litter of boughs, applied snow to his wounded head, and assisted him to
the best of their knowledge. Antek had sat down on the ground, tearing
his hair and crying out as one mad:
“They have killed him ... killed him!” till the folk began to think him
really distracted.
Suddenly he stopped.—All came upon him in a flash: he at once darted
upon the forester with such a shriek of rage, with such a rabid glare in
his eyes, that the latter trembled and would have fled. Soon aware,
however, that flight could not save him, he turned and fired, so close
that Antek’s face was blackened with powder. By some miracle, he
missed—and the avenger was on him like a thunderbolt.
Resistance, attempts to escape, prayers for mercy forced from him by
despair and fear of death, were all in vain. Antek’s clutch was the grip
of a maddened wolf. He throttled him till the gristle of his windpipe
cracked, then whirling him on high, thrashed a tree with his body until
the breath was quite beaten out of it.
Then he began to fight the others. Wherever he appeared, all fled before
him terrified: so fearful was he to behold, smeared with his father’s
blood and with his own, bareheaded, with matted hair, livid as a
corpse—a portentous monster of superhuman strength! Almost by himself,
he struck down and put to flight such as yet resisted; and, in the end,
they were forced to calm him and hold him back, or he would have beaten
all the hostile party to death.
All was over. Those of Lipka, though bleeding from many a wound, now
filled the wood with triumphant cries.
The women tended the more grievously wounded, and placed them on
sledges. They were not a few. One of Klemba’s sons had a broken arm;
Andrew Paches’ leg, too, was broken; he could not walk, and screamed as
they bore him off. Kobus was unable to move for the blows he had got;
Matthew was spitting blood, and his loins hurt him exceedingly. Others
also were in as evil plight almost. Scarcely one had come unscathed out
of the encounter; but—they were victorious! So, caring no whit for their
wounds, they set up joyful deafening shouts as they prepared to return.
Boryna was lifted into his sledge, and driven slowly, for fear he should
die on the road. He remained unconscious: gore oozed from under the
bandages, falling into his eyes and running down his cheeks, which were
white as a dead man’s.
Antek walked beside the sledge, gazing on his father with eyes full of
dismay. When the ground was rough, he held his head up gently; from time
to time he would murmur low, in a tone of infinite sorrow:
“My father! O God! my father!”
The folk went home as best they could, in disorderly groups of threes
and fours, among the trees, for the roadway was taken up by the sledges.
Now and then a deep groan was heard; but most of them laughed
boisterously, with merry shouts. And they talked and talked, relating
episodes of the fight, priding themselves on their victory, and deriding
the vanquished. Songs, too, and deafening whoops reverberated through
the woodland. They were all intoxicated with victory, and more than one
staggered along, stumbling over roots or jostling the trunks of trees.
Blows and fatigue were all forgotten; their hearts, elated with the
ineffable glory of success, swelled with enthusiasm, and felt the force
to withstand the whole world, if it opposed. Nay! get the better of it,
too!
On they trooped in noisy bands, with flashing glances at the
forest—theirs by right of conquest!—And it waved above them and rustled
and shed on their heads its dew of melted frost, as if it were weeping
over them.
Suddenly Boryna opened his eyes, gazing long at Antek, and seemingly
unable to believe his senses. Then a deep calm joy overspread his
features; twice he opened his mouth to speak, and at last with a great
effort succeeded in whispering:
“Is it you, son? is it you?”
And he relapsed into lethargy.
END OF PART II
Transcriber’s Notes
1. Italic text in the original is delimited by underscores.
2. Bold text in the original is delimited by equals signs.
3. Footnotes originally appearing at the bottom of a given page have
been moved to directly below the paragraph in which they appear.
4. Footnote 6 is missing “—_Translator’s Note_”, unlike the rest of
the footnotes in the main text.
5. Hyphenated words were silently joined across lines and pages when
the intended word was clear.
6. The following table notes the other material changes made to the
printed text, in order to correct apparent printing errors
(punctuation, spelling, quotation marks, repeated words), and to
standardize spelling and hyphenation for identical words to the
more common usage across all four volumes. Changes are denoted in
[brackets].
=Page= =Text= =Operation=
9 we shall have a snow[-]storm Removed
11 injury was a[s] fresh Added
13 his father’s out[-]houses, even the Removed
17 like huge mole[-]hills, straggling Removed
30 putting up a saw[-]mill here Removed
49 past[-]masters Removed
49 He filled [with/the] whole place Replaced
51 of the o[[Space]/t]her, secretly Replaced
56 sell all our live[-]stock. So Removed
57 tea[-]time Removed
61 such a bare[-]faced lie? Removed
64 then a hail[-]storm of Removed
67 But the saw[-]mill must go Removed
68 in ice[-]bound stillness Removed
68 was tufted with hoar[-]frost Removed
72 like a beet[-]root, and fumbled Removed
73 on an u[n]pleasant subject Added
77 if over[-]sprinkled with Removed
79 of sour beet[-]root soup, with Removed
84 stones, water[-]drops, clods, Removed
84 to chop fire[-]wood against Removed
85 the che[e/r]ry-orchards in blossom Replaced
89 for head[-]gear caps Removed
100 “But,” Nas[t]ka cried, “wherefore Added
115 when my good[-]man had Removed
132 axes at the saw[-]mill, some Removed
132 him of the saw[-]mill Removed
134 Bartek of the saw[-]mill, with Removed
138 of the saw[-]mill and his people Removed
142 of the saw[-]mill, and he went Removed
154 to the hay[-]rick. Of Removed
154 to the hayrick.[[New Paragraph]]Of Added
161 my catechism and [b/m]y primer! Replaced
162 your women[-]folk thither: Removed
172 trunks to the saw[-]mill and, when Removed
182 The weather[-]beaten birches Removed
184 fled into the snow[-]storm, which Removed
186 night and snow[-]storm as she Removed
188 extraordinary meet[t]ing with Boryna Removed
191 blood, bare[-]headed; his Removed
192 custom, came Va[c]hnikova, plentifully Added
200 crash! the horse[s]’s hoofs Removed
208 by hail[-]storms: and Removed
208 He stood thunder[-]struck. Removed
210 ruined by hail[-]storms. Removed
213 gossamer-besprinkled dew[-]drops; and Removed
221 with those spring[-]tide regions; Removed
232 called to Bartek of the saw[-]mill. Removed
234 busy[-]bodies Removed
235 flows c[la/al]mly on as before Replaced
239 tears, like blood[-]stained pearls Removed
240 trees covered with hoar[-]frost—with Removed
243 Those meetings were unwilling[l]y Added
252 laboured at the saw[-]mill or carried Removed
254 with the spring[-]tide and the Removed
260 last year’s spring[-]tide was. Removed
265 distress, her heart[-]felt sorrow Removed
266 whitening with hoar[-]frost the Removed
268 leave!” Ko[s/z]lova shrieked Replaced
274 his sheep[-]skin, and Removed
275 of yellow saw[-]dust—the blood Removed
277 that the hoar[-]frost began to Removed
283 own, bare[-]headed, with Removed