THE PEASANTS
SPRING
THE
PEASANTS
A TALE OF
OUR OWN TIMES
IN
FOUR VOLUMES
AUTUMN
WINTER
SPRING
SUMMER[1]
-----
Footnote 1:
_To be published July, 1925_
THE PEASANTS
SPRING
FROM THE POLISH OF
LADISLAS REYMONT
[Illustration: Publisher’s Logo]
ALFRED · A · KNOPF
NEW YORK MCMXXV
PUBLISHED APRIL, 1925, BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC.
SECOND PRINTING, APRIL, 1925
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
_The Peasants_ has been translated from the original Polish by Michael
H. Dziewicki, Reader of English Literature at the University of Cracow.
I wish to make special acknowledgment to Dr. A. M. Nawench of Columbia
University for his invaluable assistance in seeing the work through the
press.
A. A. K.
THE PEASANTS
SPRING
CHAPTER I
Spring had come.
Like a toiler who, having slept the sleep of exhaustion, is forced to
rise ere dawn after a too short rest, and go out and plough without
delay, the April morning was rising lazily.
It was grey dawn.
Silence reigned everywhere, save for the copious dews that dropped and
dripped from the trees, wrapped in dense mists and slumbering.
Over the black earth, plunged in stillness and deep darkness, the sky
was beginning to glimmer palely, and look like a sheet of wringing wet
bluish canvas.
All the low-lying meadows were whitish with mantling haze, which
resembled the frothy head of milk in a pail.
Cocks presently vied with one another, crowing in the yet invisible
hamlets.
The last stars went out, closing their tired and sleepy eyes.
And now a glow was kindled in the East, as when they blow on embers half
quenched in the ashes.
The floating mists rolled heavily hither and thither, surged about the
dusky fields as floods in the spring thaw, or went up the sky in thin
blue spirals, like incense smoke.
The day was at odds with the paling night, which crouched and clung
close to the earth, covering it with its thick wet cloak.
The light was slowly spreading all over the sky, and coming down nearer
and nearer to the ground, and struggling with the entangling fog. In
places, along the uplands, there were seen drab dew-soaked expanses,
peering out of the night, and plashes of water that shimmered with
lack-lustre surfaces, and brooks that poured their streaming contents
along, between the dissolving mists and the brightening dawn.
And as it grew lighter, the flush in the East changed from livid violet
to the blood-red tints of a huge conflagration. Things grew visible: the
black circle of forest at the sky-line, the long row of poplars on the
ascending road, drooping forward, as though tired by the weary climb,
sprang into sight; and the hamlets sprinkled over the country-side, and
hitherto buried in shadows, now peeped forth here and there in the
morning light, like dark rocks in a swirl of foaming water, and some of
the nearer trees were silvered all over with morning dews.
The sun had not risen yet, but it was clearly on the point of bursting
out of the crimson glory round it, upon the world now just opening its
bleared eyes, and stirring a little, but still resting and drowsily
enjoying its rest. Now the stillness seemed to ring yet more loudly in
the ears, for the earth was, as it were, holding its breath: only a
feeble breeze, faint as the breathing of an infant, blew from the woods
and shook the dewdrops from the trees.
Out of the greyness of the early morn, above those fields still deep in
slumber and in shadow, like a church filled with silent worshippers,
suddenly rose the ditty of a lark.
Up from the ground it soared, and, rising, flapped its wings, twittering
with silvery sounds—the tinkling of a Mass-bell, as it were—or like a
fragrant column of springtide perfumes, rising, rising upward; and from
the hallowed heights and silences of the eastern sky it called aloud to
all the country-side.
And in a little others joined its song, soaring to heaven, and, as they
beat their wings, proclaimed the approach of day to every creature!
The sun was coming, it was close at hand.
At last it peered above the far-off forest, as if it rose from an abyss;
as if divine invisible hands were holding up its huge and glittering
paten over the drowsy lands, and blessing with the blessing of its light
all things that in them were—living or dead, coming to life or dying out
of it—beginning thus the holy offering of the day, while all things fell
and worshipped in the dust, mutely closing their unworthy eyes before
its sacred majesty.
Now day had dawned.
Like odoriferous smoke, the haze was wafted upwards from the meadows to
the gold-splashed sky; and birds and living things of every kind burst
out into a chant ... a cry, a thankful prayer, a prayer rising from the
heart!
Then did the sun appear above the dark woods and countless villages,
high, mighty, shedding warmth below—the eye of God’s own mercy—and
commence its reign, its peaceful gentle mastery over all the land.
It was just then that Agata, the Klembas’ aged kinswoman, made her
appearance upon a sandhill near the forest, where several stacks
belonging to the Manor stood by a roadway full of deep ruts.
In early autumn she had started on her pilgrimage of beggary, and eaten
“bread of our Lord’s giving” ever since.
And now she had come back, just like those homing birds that always find
their nests again in spring.
Old, feeble, very short of breath, and something like a roadside willow,
rooted in the sand, decrepit, phosphorescent, tottering to its fall—she
walked all in rags, staff in hand, wallet on back, and a rosary dangling
at her side.
The sun was rising when she passed the Manor stacks with quick short
steps, raising her weatherbeaten shrivelled face to the sun, while her
grey eyes, though bloodshot, sparkled bright with joy.
Ah! Back again in her native village, after the long hard winter!—The
thought gave wings to her feet; her wallet jogged upon her shoulders,
and her beads tinkled at her side: but soon her breath grew short, her
labouring lungs failed her, and she had perforce to stop and then go on
more slowly and painfully. But her hungry eyes scoured the country
round; she smiled on those grey fields, now greenish with a haze of
growing corn; on the villages, coming little by little out of the
enveloping fog; on those trees, as yet bare of foliage, that stood as
guardians of the road, and on those others, scattered solitary about the
plain.
By this time the sun was pretty high, and cast its beams over the
farthest fields of all. The whole country gleamed with rosy dew; the
black ploughed lands shone in light, the waters glittered, streaming by
in the ditches, the voices of the larks rang loud through the cool air.
Farther, beneath some outjutting crags, the last patches of vanishing
snow still glistened. On a few trees there hung clusters of yellow
catkins that dangled in air like amber beads. In certain nooks, and from
the beds of pools drying in the sun, young grass with golden blades was
springing up amongst last year’s dry rust-coloured leaves, or wild
flowers were opening their yellow eyes. A light breeze had caught up the
rich dank odours of the plain that basked idly in the sunlight; and
everything around was so bright, so vast, and full of such delicious
sweetness that Agata would fain have had wings, to soar upwards with a
great cry of joy and rapture.
“O good Lord! O dear Jesus!” she gasped, sitting down to take the whole
view, as it were, into her tender heart that throbbed with gladness.
Oh, how the springtide was rolling on over the broad plains, while the
lark’s anthems announced its coming to all!... And that sacred sun!...
And oh, the soft warm caresses of the wind, like the kisses of a
mother!... and the still, mysterious yearnings of the land, awaiting the
plough and the sower!... Oh, and the seething of life everywhere coming
forth, and the breezes pregnant with that which was soon to be the
blade—the flower—the full corn in the ear!
Oh, how the spring was coming forth, like a bright lady clad in
sunbeams, with a face like the rosy dawn, and tresses like streaming
waters! Here she was, floating down from the sun, and hovering over the
cornfields this bright April morning; and from her outspread hands
fluttered many a lark, set free to sing her praises blithely! In her
wake flew rows of cranes, with joyful clangorous notes, and wild geese,
in wedge-shaped formation athwart the pale-blue sky. Storks went forth
along the marshy levels, swallows twittered by the huts, and all the
winged tribes came singing merrily. And as often as that sunny mantle of
hers touched the earth, grasses sprang up, quivering to the breeze;
swollen buds glistened under their coating of viscid gum, and leaflets
whispered low; for a new strong lush life was rising everywhere.
And oh, how she caressed and fondled all those poor lowly tumble-down
cottages! With what eyes of mercy did she glance beneath the thatches,
and awake to life the chilled and palsy-stricken hearts of men, who
now—in this hour of longed-for consolation—put aside their griefs and
sombre broodings, and dreamed that a happier lot might yet be theirs!
The land resounded with life, as a bell long silent, when given a new
tongue. It was the sun’s gift, and the magnificent peal rang out and
boomed with clamorous joy, waking timid hearts and singing of things
most marvellous, until it found an echo in every soul. Tears started to
every eye: the immortal spirit of man, rising up in its strength, knelt
in raptures to embrace the land—that world of its own—aye, every swollen
and pregnant clod of it!—every tree and stone and exhalation—all that he
cherished and held dear!
Thus felt Agata, as she dragged herself slowly along, greedily gloating
over that Holy Land of her dreams, and reeling at times as if from
strong drink.
The Mass-bell, tinkling in the steeple, recalled her to her senses at
last, and she fell upon her knees.
“... Thy holy will, O Lord, has brought me home.
“... Thou hast shown mercy to the friendless one!”
She could hardly get the words out. A great torrent of tears welled up
from her heart and poured down her withered cheeks. So moved was she
that she could no longer find her beads, nor any but incoherent
utterances, struck out from her soul like burning sparks. At last, with
a mighty effort, she rose and went forward, her eyes on the country-side
around her.
It was now broad day. All Lipka was spread out before and beneath her,
in a circle round the mill-pond, now dark-blue and glittering like a
mirror through the thin veil of whitish haze over it. Along its shores
the cottages were crouching on the ground, and seated like goodwives
amongst their yet leafless orchard-trees. A little smoke rose above some
of the thatches, panes gleamed in the sunshine, and freshly whitewashed
walls contrasted strongly with the dark trunks that partly hid them.
And now she could make out each of the huts apart. The mill, with its
noisy clutter more distinct as she advanced, stood at one end of the
village, close to the road she was following, and at the opposite end
the church raised its high white front amongst huge trees, its windows
and the golden cross on the steeple shining afar, and the red-tiled roof
of the priest’s house visible close by. And beyond, to the very
sky-line, extended the bluish-grey ring of forest, the wide expanse of
cornland, villages at a distance, nestling in their orchards; outjutting
crags, winding roadways, lines of slanting trees, sandhills scantily
clad with juniper-bushes, and the thin thread of the stream, sparkling
as it ran on to the mill-pond, in and out among the huts.
Nearer to her lay the ground belonging to Lipka—as it were, long strips
of canvas or cloth that variegated the sloping uplands. They ran in
sinuous bands, one close to the other, separated only by the winding
footpaths between them, thickly planted with spreading pear-trees, and
overrun with briers and brambles; or by drab fallows, clear-cut and
sharp in the yellow morning light. Patches of land sown in autumn, now
beginning to turn green, dark-hued potato-fields of last year’s crop,
bits of newly ploughed soil, and waters on the low levels, with a
greyish glimmer as of molten glass, completed the picture. Beyond the
mill stretched peaty-coloured meadows, on which storks were seen to wade
and heard to “klek”; and farther, cabbage plantations, so flooded as yet
that only the tops of the furrows emerged from the water like stranded
fishes: over these, white-bellied lapwings flew about. At the crossways
there stood crucifixes or statues of saints. And above this little
world, the hollow wherein the village nestled, hung the hot bright sun,
and the lark trilled out its song: a plaintive lowing was heard from the
cow-byres; geese screamed; human voices called one to another; while the
wind, bearing all these sounds upon its wings, blew with so warm and so
gentle a breath that the land seemed plunged in that quiet ecstasy in
which new life is conceived.
Yet there were not many workers to be seen in the fields. Only a few
women, close to the village, were scattering dung about, and stray
whiffs of its sharp pungent smell came to her nostrils.
“The lazy fellows! What can they be about on such a day as this, when
the land is simply begging to be tilled?... Why are so few at work?” she
muttered, in no good humour.
To approach the fields yet nearer, she left the road for a narrow path
that crossed a ditch where the grass grew lush, and plenty of daisies
already opened their pink eyelashes to the sun. She well remembered how,
in former years, the fields were at that season all dotted over with red
petticoats, and echoing to the lasses’ songs and cries; and she knew
well that in such weather it was just the time to manure and till and
sow the land. What, then, could the matter be? Why, she saw only one
single peasant, standing somewhere in the fields and walking along,
throwing grain broadcast in a semicircular sweep.
“He must be sowing peas, so early in spring.... One of Dominikova’s
lads, no doubt,” she said, and added, with all her heart: “May God in
His mercy grant you a bountiful harvest, O dear sower!”
The path was rugged and uneven, full of fresh molehills and many a
puddle. But, absorbed as she was in every bit of land she saw, she paid
no heed to these.
“This is the priest’s rye-field. How well it grows! I remember, when I
started on my wanderings, the farm-servant was ploughing here, and his
Reverence sat close by.”
Again she crawled on painfully, breathing hard and looking round with
tearful eyes.
“This is Ploshka’s rye ... but it must have come up late, or rotted
somewhat in the ground.”
She bent down—no easy task for her!—to stroke the moist blades lovingly,
as she would have stroked a child’s head, with tremulous withered
fingers.
“Ah, here is Boryna’s wheat! A magnificent piece of ground. Of course:
is he not the first farmer in Lipka?—A little frost-bitten, though; the
winter has been very severe,” she thought, looking out over the flat
expanse of fields ploughed last autumn, and the blades sunk deep in the
earth and soiled with mire, testifying to the heavy winter snows and
floods.
“Oh,” she sighed, “the folk here have suffered not a little.” And she
shaded her eyes to look at a couple of lads who were coming by from the
village.
“The organist’s pupil, and one of his sons.... What large baskets! Ah,
no doubt they are going to Vola with their annual list for confession.
Yes, that is what they are about.”
She greeted them as they went by, and would have chatted with them
willingly; but they only mumbled a reply, and hurried on, deep in
conversation with each other.
“And I have known them ever since they could walk!” she said,
disappointed and out of sorts. “Ah, well! how should they know a beggar
like me?—But Michael has grown up finely, and will surely now be playing
the organ for his Reverence.”
She was presently close to Klemba’s property. “Lord! there is not one
man to be seen!” she cried.—She was now so near the village that she
could smell the smoke of the chimneys, and see the beds and cushions
laid out to air in the orchard. Her heart was brimming over with
thankfulness for having been spared till now, and allowed to come back
to her people. In this hope she had been able to live through the
winter: it had upheld and strengthened her against cold and want and
death itself.
She sat down under some bushes, to arrange her dress a little, but could
not. Joy made her limbs quiver and her heart flutter like a strangled
bird.
“There are still some good kind people here,” she whispered, looking
hard at her wallet. She had put by, she knew, quite enough for her
burial.
For many a year she had set her heart upon one thing: to die (when our
Lord should call her) in her own village, lying in a cottage, on a
feather-bed, and beneath a row of holy images upon the wall: as all
goodwives die. And for many a year she had been saving against that
last, that sacred hour!
Now at the Klembas’, up in the loft, she had a chest, and within that
chest a great feather-bed, with sheets and pillows, and new
pillow-covers: all clean, and none of them ever used, in order to be
always in readiness. There was no other place to put that bedding, for
she never had a room or a bedstead to herself, but was used to sleep in
some corner, on a litter of straw, or in the cow-house, according to
circumstances, and as the people of the house allowed her. For she would
never assert herself, nor make any complaints, being well aware that
things take place in this world according to God’s will, and are not to
be changed by sinful man.
And yet—in secret, silently, and asking to be forgiven for her pride—she
had dreamed of this one thing: to be buried like a village goodwife. For
this she had long prayed in fear and trembling.
Naturally, therefore, on arriving in the village, and aware that her
last hour was not far off, she set about considering whether there was
anything that she had forgotten.
No. She had got all that was required. With her she carried a Candlemas
taper that she had begged after a nightwatch over a dead body; a bottle
of holy water; a new sprinkling-brush, a consecrated picture of Our Lady
of Chenstohova, which she should hold when dying, and a few score
_zloty_ for her burial, which might possibly also suffice for a Mass to
be said, before the body, with candles and the rite of sprinkling
performed at the church-door. For she never dreamed that the priest
would accompany the body to the grave.
_That_ was out of the question. Not every landowner had the luck of
being honoured thus; besides, the fee for that alone would swallow up
all her savings!
She sighed heavily and rose to her feet, feeling much weaker than usual.
Her lungs hurt her greatly, and she was so racked with coughing that she
could hardly crawl along.
“If,” she mused, “I was able to hold out till haymaking, or till the
harvest begins! Oh, then I could willingly lie down and die, dear Jesus!
lie down and die!”
She thought her hopes sinful, and wanted to excuse them.
But now arose the disquieting thought: who would take her in and let her
die in his hut?
“I shall,” she said, “look for some good kind-hearted people: and they
may be more willing if I promise them a little money. Indeed, no one
cares to have trouble and annoyance in his own cottage on account of a
stranger.”
As to dying at her relations’, the Klembas, she durst not even think of
that.
“So many children!—No room in the cabin; and the fowls are laying now,
and place must be made for them.—And then, it were a disgrace for such
landowners to have a beggar, their kinswoman, die under their roof.”
All this she was pondering without any bitterness, as she plodded her
way on the road along the dike raised to protect the meadows and
cabbage-plantations from a flood.
The mill-pond shone bright on her left, reflecting the sun’s golden
locks in its deep-blue waters. On its banks, overgrown with drooping
alders, flocks of geese screamed and flapped their wings; on the still
miry roads, troops of merry children ran about and shouted.
And Lipka stood on this side and on that of the pond, as it had stood no
doubt ever since the world began, buried in its wide-spreading orchards,
and in the undergrowths of its enclosures.
Slowly Agata trudged on, but with swift glances that took everything in
at once. The miller’s wife was sitting on the threshold of her house,
amongst a boisterous troop of goslings, yellow as wax, that she was
taking care of. Agata greeted her, and went quickly past, well pleased
that the dogs which lay basking along the walls had not taken note of
her.
She crossed the bridge, where the waters began their rush to the
mill-wheels, and the road forked out into two branches that embraced the
whole village.
After an instant’s hesitation, her desire to see everything mastered
her, and she turned to the left, making her way a little longer.
The forge, which she passed first, was silent and lifeless; against the
sooty walls stood the fore part of a cart and several rusty ploughs: but
the smith himself was away, and his wife, in smock and petticoat, busy
digging in the orchard.
Agata went around, stopping before every hut, leaning over the low stone
fences, and gazing curiously at all she saw within. Dogs came up and
sniffed at her, but seemed to recognize one of the inhabitants, and went
back to lie in the sun.
Wherever she went, she found a strange stillness and emptiness.
“All the men are away ... attending either at some law court or a
meeting somewhere,” she finally said to herself, as she entered the
church.
Mass was over; his Reverence sat in the confessional; some dozen or so
of people from distant hamlets were in the pews, at intervals heaving
deep sighs, or uttering some words of their prayers aloud.
From a lamp suspended in front of the high altar, a ripple as of bluish
smoke ascended tremulously through the sunlight that poured down from
the windows high above. Without, sparrows chirruped, and now and then
ventured into the aisles with straws in their beaks; from time to time a
swallow came twittering in by the great doorway, swept round, skirting
the cold silent walls, and speedily flew back to the bright world
outside.
Agata said a few short prayers and hurried out, eager to get to the
Klembas’. Just in front of the church, Yagustynka met her.
“What, you here, Agata!” she exclaimed in astonishment.
“Yes, here I am, and still alive, good dame”; and she bent to kiss her
hand.
“Why, they said ye had turned up your toes somewhere far away. But I see
that ‘our Lord’s bread,’ though easily earned, has not done you much
good. There’s a churchyard look about you,” the old hag said, eyeing her
mockingly.
“Ye say true, good dame; I have scarce been able to drag my old bones
hither.”
“Off to the Klembas’, eh?”
“Surely. Are they not my kith and kin?”
“Your wallet is pretty well filled: they will receive you kindly. Also
ye have there, I dare say, a few coins knotted in a clout. Aye, aye!
they will certainly admit your kinship.”
“Are they all well?” Agata interrupted, pained at her jeers.
“They are. Except Thomas, who is in poor health, but getting better in
prison.”
“Thomas! In prison?—Pray make no such jokes; they do not amuse me.”
“What I said I repeat. But let me add that he is in good company; the
whole village is there too along with him. When the law comes in, with
its trap-doors and gratings, it takes no account if a man has land or
not.”
Agata stood bewildered. “Jesus, Mary, Joseph!” she moaned.
“Now hurry along to Klemba’s wife: you will soon be fed up with news....
Aha! the men are taking a holiday, with a vengeance!” she said, and
laughed maliciously.
Agata crept away: she could not believe the news. On her way, she saw
several women whom she knew, and who greeted her kindly; but she made as
though she had not heard them, and of set purpose went as slowly as she
could, putting off the dread confirmation of what the old woman had told
her. She lingered long, gazing here and there, unwilling to know the
worst.
At last, however, she made bold to enter Klemba’s hut, which was at
hand; but she trembled all over, and looked with frightened eyes at the
orchard and the cottage in the background. Close to the windows, the
cows were drinking noisily out of a large tub; and on the other end of
the long open passage through the hut, she could see a sow with her
little ones wallowing in the mud, and fowls looking eagerly for food on
the dunghill. The tub was empty now. Taking it up (for she somehow felt
more courage, coming in thus with something in her hand), she entered
the large dusky room, and “praised God.”
“Who is that?” answered a plaintive voice from the inner chamber.
“’Tis I—Agata.” With what a catch in her voice did she utter the words!
“Agata! Well, I never...!” said Dame Klemba, appearing suddenly on the
threshold, with her apron full of little goslings, while their mothers
came hissing and gaggling round her.
“Ah! God be thanked! And folk said ye had died so long ago as last
Yule-tide; only no one knew where, and my goodman even went to the
police office to find out.—Take a seat; ye must be tired.—You see, our
geese have been hatching.”
“A goodly brood! What a number, too!”
“Yes: threescore less five.—Come out in front of the house; I must feed
them and take care lest the old ones trample them down.”
She let them escape from her apron, and they began to run about, fluffy
like yellow catkins; while the mother birds came up, gaggling with
pleasure, and stretching out their long necks over them.
Dame Klemba brought them a mixture of minced eggs, nettle-leaves, and
groats, set out on a board, and squatted down to protect them; for the
parents, with loud indignant screams, tried hard to get at the food, and
tread the little ones down and peck at them.
Agata sat down in front of the house. “They are all marked with grey
between the wings,” she said.
“’Tis the mark of their breed: very large-sized. I got the eggs from the
organist’s wife: one in exchange for every three of mine.—Ah, ’tis well
you have come; there’s so much work, one does not know what to do
first.”
“I will bestir myself at once—at once!”
She made an effort to rise, meaning to set about doing something or
other; but her strength failed her, and she reeled against the wall.
“Evidently,” the other said, noting her livid face, and her strangely
swollen and discomposed appearance, “evidently ye are too much used up
to be of service any more.”
She was vexed to see her like this; it was clear to her that the woman
would not only be useless, but cause no little trouble besides.
Agata must have guessed what she felt, and said in a timid apologetic
tone:
“Do not fear: I will not cumber you, nor intrude on your meals. I shall
but rest awhile, and then go away. I merely wanted to see you all, and
ask about you.” Her eyes brimmed with tears.
“Well, but I am not turning you out.—Sit down; you will only leave us if
you choose.”
“Where are the lads?” she asked presently. “In the fields with Thomas, I
suppose?”
“Have ye not heard, then, that they are all in jail?”
Agata joined her hands in silent agony.
“Yagustynka had told me as much, but I could not believe it.”
“Ah! she told you the truth—gospel truth!”
She drew herself up stiffly and wept, as she remembered what had
happened.
“Aye, it was as a very Doomsday for Lipka. They were taken away to town,
all of them—all!—How I outlived it, I cannot tell.... ’Twas three weeks
ago now, and it is as fresh in my mind as a thing of yesterday. Only
Maciek, and the girls who are in the fields spreading dung, and I, poor
wretched creature, have been left!
“Get away!” she suddenly cried to the geese. “Would ye then kill your
own children as swine do? Would ye?”
And she called together the goslings, which were all going off into the
enclosure after the mother birds.
“Nay, let them run about,” said Agata; “no hawk is in sight, and I will
look after them.”
“Ye can scarce drag your limbs: how should you run after geese?”
“Ever since I crossed your threshold, I have felt better.”
“Then try.—I will get you some food. Shall I boil milk for you?”
“Thanks, mistress, but on Saturdays in Lent I never take milk. Give me a
pot of boiling water. I have bread with me, and shall crumble it in and
eat.”
In a little, Dame Klemba brought her a dish of hot water, seasoned with
salt, and Agata took her meal of crumbled bread. Meanwhile the former
told her all about the battle, its causes, and its end. How Boryna’s
skull had been cracked by the keeper, whom Antek slew in his turn to
avenge his father; how the old man had been lying insensible ever since;
how others too had been badly hurt in the fight, and how little they
cared for that, because they won the victory.
“But,” she went on to say, “on the following Sunday, not four days
after, when wet snow was falling thick, and one could hardly step out of
doors, we were preparing to go to church, when the Gulbas lads came
round, shouting: ‘The gendarmes are here!’
“So indeed they were—thirty of them, besides officials and justices ...
a whole court!—and they quartered themselves upon the priest. Then they
set about putting questions and taking notes, and bringing everybody to
them under guard for examination. No one resisted; they all spoke out
bravely, telling the truth as frankly as at Holy Confession.—This ended
about eventide. The court was for carrying the whole village away, even
the women! But there was such a crying and wailing of children that the
men began to look about them for staves, and would have fought to the
uttermost.... Then his Reverence must have spoken to the justices, for
they left us here. Not even Kozlova did they take, though she used most
evil speech to them: only the men were put in jail. And as to Antek, son
of Boryna, they ordered him to be conveyed thither in bonds.”
“In bonds! O Lord!”
“They bound him, but he snapped the ropes asunder like tow. And all were
afraid of him, who seemed as though mad with fever, or possessed with a
devil. And he stood up before them, and looked them in the face, saying:
“‘Make my hands and feet fast with manacles and fetters, and watch over
me well.—Else I slay you all, and do to myself an evil thing!’
“He was so amazed for his father’s loss that he himself offered his
hands and feet to the gyves. And thus did they carry him away.
“Never shall I forget how they took him: never, till I die. And my
goodman did they take likewise, and my sons, and the other men: about
threescore of them.
“But what fell out here at that hour—what lamentations, what awful
curses were heard—I could in no wise tell you!
“And now spring is here; the snows have melted away, the fields are dry
and crying out to be tilled, and the time for ploughing and sowing has
come: but we have no one to work here!
“Only the Voyt, the smith, and a few decrepit old men have been left; of
the young men, only the fool, Yasyek Topsy-turvy!
“Yet ’tis now the season for yeaning and calving; and of our women, many
are brought to bed in these days; and we must think of our lads over
there, and take food to them, with a little money and a clean shirt or
two; meanwhile, we are over head and ears in work, and there is no
hiring labour elsewhere, every peasant having first of all to shift for
himself.”
“Will they not be soon set free?”
“The Lord knows! Our priest went to the police; so did the Voyt: and
they say that, the inquiry over, sentence will be given. But three weeks
have gone by, and not one man is back home. Roch, too, went to make
inquiries last Thursday.”
“Does Boryna live still?”
“He does, but even as one dead; he lies like a log, insensible. Hanka
sent for the best doctors, but they did naught.”
“What could they do? Physicians are in vain when the ailment is mortal.”
Klembova then told her visitor all that had taken place in winter; for
Agata had not heard anything.
She let her arms drop in sheer amazement and horror at what she now
learned: the news made her heart ache.
“O my God! I was all the time thinking of Lipka, but never, never
dreamed.... All my life I have heard nothing like it.—Is Satan come to
abide with us?”
“Belike he is.”
“It must be so. Our Lord is punishing us for the grievous sin of Antek
with his stepmother. But there are other sins besides, that now spring
forth and are seen by all.”
Agata feared to ask what these were; she raised a shaking hand and,
crossing herself, mumbled some devout prayer.
“Yes, all the people have to suffer for them. While Boryna is lying
there for dead”—here she lowered her voice—“they say that Yagna is
making up in real earnest to the Voyt. Antek is away, Matthew also: she
has no young fellow by, so she takes the first willing man she meets!
What a world we live in, my God!” she ejaculated, wringing her hands.
Agata had nothing to reply. The news she had heard depressed her so,
that her former fatigue now came upon her with increased power, and she
crept to the byre to get some rest.
About sunset she was seen again, going the round of her acquaintances;
and when she came back to the Klembas’, these were at supper.
A spoon had been set and a place reserved for her; not a first place, of
course. But she had little appetite, and preferred telling them what she
had seen in the towns she had visited as a pilgrim.
Then night fell and they lit a candle in the room previous to retiring
for the night, she brought out her wallet, and, while they surrounded
her with breathless curiosity, slowly took forth the various things she
had bought for them: for each one, a holy picture; for the girls, a
necklace (ah, how they, one after another, went peeping into the
looking-glass, to see how theirs became them, drawing up their necks,
like so many turkeys!); good strong knives for the lads; for Thomas, a
large packet of tobacco, and for his good dame, a great frill, deeply
scolloped and adorned with many-coloured embroidery, all so beautiful
that the housewife herself clapped her hands to see it!
All were extremely pleased, all feasted their eyes upon the gifts; while
Agata, enjoying their pleasure, told them in detail how much each
article had cost and where it had been bought.
They sat up long, talking of the absent ones.
“The village is so deadly still, it makes me feel a lump in the throat!”
Agata said at last, when all had done talking, and there was a deep dull
silence around her. “How different it was this time last year! The whole
village shook with shouts and laughter.”
“Yes, and now it looks like a vast grave,” Klembova chimed in
mournfully; “only fit to be covered with a tombstone, and have a cross
raised above.”
“So ’tis.—Mistress, may I go and rest upstairs?” Agata asked meekly. “My
bones ache with journeying, and my eyes begin to draw straws.”
“Sleep wheresoever ye choose: there is no lack of room now!”
But as she was going up the ladder to the loft, Klembova spoke to her
through the open door:
“Oh, I had all but forgotten to tell you.... We have taken your
feather-bed out of your chest.... During the Carnival, Marcyha was down
with the smallpox ... and it was very cold ... and we had nothing to
keep her warm with.—So we borrowed it of you.... It has been aired by
now, and shall be taken upstairs to-morrow.”
“My feather-bed?—Well, ’twas your wish.... All right, since ye wanted
it.”
She broke off, unable to say more, and groped her way up to the chest.
Raising the lid, she ran her hands feverishly over her funeral outfit.
Yes, the feather-bed that she had left completely new had been taken!
New, not even once used!... How she had picked up the stuffing, feather
by feather, gleaning them upon the goose-pastures, to have her last bed
ready for her! She burst out crying: the blow was too cruel.
And she prayed for a long time, seasoning her prayers with bitter tears,
and lovingly complaining to her dear Jesus of the wrong done to her.