“Yuzka, kindle the fire; fill all our pots with water, and put them on
to boil. I am off to Yankel’s to get the seasonings.”
“Then hurry; Ambrose will be here straightway.”
“No fear; he cannot come so early. He has his duties to perform in
church.”
“Only to ring the bell for Mass. Roch is going to take his place for all
the rest.”
“Well, I shall be in time. Meanwhile, you hurry the lads, make them
scour the trough quickly, and bring it outside the cabin.—Yagustynka
will be here presently: let her wash the tubs.—Also the empty barrels
must be taken out of the larder and rolled into the pond, to get the
staves properly soaked and swollen out.—Do not wake the little ones; so
long as they sleep, they’ll be less in the way.”—And, having given her
orders and tied her apron over her head, she hastened out into the air
of an early and very muggy and rainy morning.
The day was dismal, wet, and most unpleasantly cold; grey mists dripped
and drizzled, the slippery roads were sodden and dank, the drab-coloured
huts loomed faintly through the rain that fell; the trees, drooping
gloomily over the pond, were seen like tremulous shrinking swaying
shadows, as dim as if they had been made of mist; in this foul weather,
there was scarce any landscape visible, and no one was out as yet. It
was only when the Mass-bell began to tinkle that a few red petticoats
were seen picking their way through the mire to church.
Hanka tripped on swiftly, thinking she might perhaps meet Ambrose at the
turning of the road; but he was nowhere in sight. Only the priest’s old
blind horse, as usual at that hour of the day, was going down to the
pond with a large barrel, drawn on sledge-runners, stopping and
stumbling at every rut, yet finding its way to the place by scent: the
farm-lad waiting for it having sheltered himself from the rain in the
bushes, and begun smoking a cigarette.
Just in front of the priest’s house, a britzka drawn by a couple of
well-fed chestnut horses, had pulled up and the ruddy-faced incumbent of
Laznov stepped out of it.
“Come to hear confessions, along with his Reverence of Slupia,” she
thought, as she looked in vain for Ambrose. She went on round the church
by the poplar road, where the mire was yet more abundant, and the trees,
plunged in the vapoury mizzle, looked like shadows seen through a
steam-clouded pane. Passing the tavern, she struck off in the squashy
pathway that led to her sister’s.
She would, she reckoned, have time enough for a call on her father, and
a talk with her sister, with whom, now that she had removed to Boryna’s,
she was on very friendly terms.
“Yuzka told me yesterday that Father was not well!” she exclaimed on
entering.
“Ah, what’s to be done? He is lying in bed under his sheepskin, and
moaning, and talking about being ill,” Veronka moodily replied.
“How cold it is here! I feel it creeping up the calves of my legs!”
“And have I any fuel at all? Who will go and fetch me a few dry faggots?
How can I trudge to the forest and come home with a load of brushwood
when there’s so much other work to do? You see, I must manage all by
myself.”
They then both fell to lamenting over their sad fate.
“When Staho was here, I thought nothing of all he did at home. When the
husband is gone, ah! then one knows what a help he is!—Are you going to
town?”
“Certainly; I should have gone before, but Roch told me that visits
would not be allowed until Eastertide. Therefore shall I go on Sunday,
and take my poor husband a few morsels of our Hallow-fare.”
“I fain would do the same for mine; but what have I to take to him? A
mouthful of bread?”
“Be easy; I will prepare enough for them both; and we shall take it
together.”
“God reward you for your kindness; I will work for you in return.”
“Do not speak of work in return: ’tis a gift I make you from my heart.”
She lowered her voice. “Well do I know poverty: it is a dog whose teeth
bite deep.”
“And that is so faithful and attached that it never will leave us till
we die!—I thought I had a little money laid by, and hoped to purchase a
pig in spring, and fatten it up, with no small profit when autumn came.
Well, I had to give all to Staho, and my savings have run out like
water: I have naught now. That is what comes of his standing up for the
rights of our folk!”
“Nay, say not so. He went freely to protect them, and an acre or so of
the wood will be yours.”
“_Will be!_ Aye, but ‘while the grass grows, the steed starves!’ And ‘To
him that can pay, the musicians play.’ But ‘Poor man, coin to money your
sweat, and be glad that ye ever have eat!’”
“Are ye greatly in want?” she inquired, hesitatingly.
“I have naught in the world,” she cried, flinging out her hands in
despair, “but what the Jew or the miller will give me on credit!”
“Would I could help you! But the homestead where I dwell is not mine. I
am baited as with dogs around me, and must take such heed lest they
drive me from the cabin that I am at times clean out of my wits.”
The previous night’s experience came back to her forcibly.
“Meantime,” her sister put in, “Yagna takes no care. She is a shrewd
one, she, and enjoys herself to the full!”
“How so?”
She had risen from her seat, and was looking at her sister with alarm.
Had Yagna found and taken the money?
“Oh, she only takes what pleasure she can get out of life: dresses well,
calls on her good friends, and has seven holidays a week. She was seen
sitting with the Voyt in the tavern parlour yesterday, and the Jew could
not fetch them drinks fast enough!”
“Everything must come to an end,” Hanka muttered sullenly, tying her
apron over her head to go.
“True: but then ‘Pleasure, once taken, cannot be snatched from you’—and
she knows it.”
“’Tis easy to be wise in that way, if one has naught to care about!—But,
Veronka, we are to kill the pig to-day: come you this evening to help.”
And, cutting short her sister’s everlasting complaints, she made her way
out.
Her father, who was now in the room she had once occupied, lay moaning
and almost hidden under a heap of straw.
“What ails ye, Father?”
She sat down by his side.
“Nothing, my dear daughter, nothing: only the ague shakes me sorely, and
my inwards are wrung and twisted.”
“Because ’tis here as wet and as cold as out of doors. Rise and come
over to us; ye can tend the children. And then—we shall kill the pig ...
if so be as ye have a mind to eat of it?”
“To eat? Aye, a little. They forgot to give me any food yesterday.—I
shall come, Hanka, I shall come!” And he sighed, but with pleasure, as
he crept out of the straw bed.
Hanka, her mind full of the thought of Yagna, walked over to the tavern
as fast as she could.
The Jew no longer exacted payment in advance, but with the most
obsequious eagerness weighed and measured out all she wanted, setting
out many another article besides, to tempt her.
She was very short with him. “Yankel!” she said haughtily; “give what I
ask, and no more. I am no child, and know what I wish to have.”
But the Jew only smiled. She had bought things for between ten and
twenty _zloty_, and also enough vodka to suffice for the coming festival
of Easter besides; and rolls in scores, and loaves of fine bread, and
eight salt herrings ... and even, to crown all, a small bottle of rum.
Hardly could she carry the parcel, when made up.
“What! That Yagna enjoys herself: and I, who work so hard, am I to be
worse off than a dog?”
But, though such was her thought on setting out, it was speedily
followed by remorse. The expense was unnecessary.—But for shame, she
would have made the Jew take the rum back again.
She found everybody in the cabin busy preparing things. Ambrose sat by
the fire, exchanging verbal thrusts with Yagustynka, who was engaged in
scalding the various vessels to be used; and the room was full of steam.
“We were waiting for you, to knock your little pig on the head!”
“Ye have arrived very early!”
“I made Roch take my place in the sacristy; the priest’s manservant is
to blow the organ-bellows, and Magda will sweep out the church. I have
arranged everything, so that you may not be disappointed. The priests
will not begin hearing confessions till they have finished
breakfast.—But how cold it is to-day!” he cried out querulously; “I feel
it to the very marrow.”
“Broiling at the fire, can you talk of the cold?” Yuzka cried out in
amazement.
“You are silly: I feel so cold within, that even my wooden leg’s quite
numb!”
“Ye shall soon have something to warm you.—Yuzka, soak a herring
directly.”
“Give it me salt as it is; nothing takes the salt out like vodka—when
there’s enough of it.”
“Ye’re always the same,” Yagustynka observed snappishly. “Should ye hear
glasses jingle even at midnight, ye’d rise on the spot for a drink.”
“Right, my good woman. But your tongue is very dry, is it not? you too
would like to wet it in vodka, eh?” He laughed and rubbed his hands.
“My ancient! I’ll drink glass for glass with you any day!”
Here Hanka interrupted them; their continual hints and innuendoes about
vodka were teasing her.
“Very few people are going to church as yet,” she remarked, to change
the subject.
“’Tis early. They will presently come with a rush to get rid of their
sins.”
“Aye,” said Yagustynka, “to spend the time, hear something new, and
prepare to sin again!”
Here Yuzka’s shrill voice piped: “The girls were already preparing
confessions yesternight.”
“Because,” Yagustynka said, “they are ashamed to confess to their own
priest.”
“Better, old crone, ye sat in the church-porch and said your beads and
did penance, than backbite your neighbours so!”
“I will, Wooden Leg! when ye sit by my side there!”
“Oh, I am in no hurry. I intend first to toll for you and put you to bed
with a shovel!”
The words enraged her. “Bait me not, or you’ll rue it!” she snarled.
“My stick will ward off your bites; and ’twere pity to lose your last
teeth!”
She made no answer. Just then Hanka filled a glass, and drank to them
both, and Yuzka brought a herring to Ambrose, who slapped it against his
wooden leg, skinned it, broiled it over the coals, and ate it with
relish.
“To work! We have been dawdling too long!” he cried, taking off his
coat, tucking up his shirt-sleeves, and giving his knife a last edge on
his whetstone. Then, seizing a large club, used to mash potatoes, for
the pig, he hastened out, everybody following him.
Pete aided him, and the beast, though resisting with all its might, was
dragged out into the yard.
“Quick! the dish for the blood!”
All stood round, eyeing its plump creamy sides and trailing belly, which
the drizzle from the mists that filled the orchard was wetting fast. A
few women stood outside the yard, and several children, eager to look
on, had climbed the palings.
Ambrose crossed himself, and came forward slantwise towards the pig, his
club held back at an angle on one side. Then, coming to a standstill, he
suddenly lifted his arm, and, twisting his body round with so forcible a
writhe that his neck shirt-button flew off, brought his weapon down
right between the ears. The animal’s forelegs gave way, and it went down
squealing. He redoubled the blow, this time with both hands. The pig
rolled on to one side, kicking convulsively: Ambrose then, astride on
its belly, thrust the whole of his knife’s gleaming blade into its
heart.
A dish was at hand: the blood, streaming like warm water, spurted out in
rhythmical squirts, with a bubbling sound.
“Away, Lapa!—Look at that wicked dog!—Wants to lap some, and Lent not
over yet!” he cried, breathless with exertion, as he drove the dog from
the dish: for a centenarian, the effort had been considerable.
“Shall we do the scalding in the passage?”
“Rather take the trough into the room where the carcass is to hang till
we quarter it.”
“Will there not be too little space in the room?”
“Not in the larger room—your father-in-law’s. He will suffer nothing.
Only let’s hurry: the bristles come out more readily while the carcass
is yet warm.”
As he gave his directions, he was busy pulling out the long bristles
down the back.
In a short time the carcass was scalded, unhaired, thoroughly cleansed,
hung up in Boryna’s room, and stretched out wide open with a lath tied
to a rafter.
Yagna was out, having gone to church early in the morning, and never
dreaming that such a liberty would be taken. Her husband lay as usual,
staring with lack-lustre eyes.
They worked noiselessly at first, often looking round at him; but soon
they forgot his presence, interested as they were in the pig, whose
thick layer of fat far exceeded their expectations.
“We have lulled him to sleep, we have brought him in here: ’tis time
that some vodka should flow in his honour!” cried Ambrose, washing his
hands over the trough.
“Come to breakfast, and you’ll have some drink.”
Indeed, before he sat down to the potatoes and _barszcz_ which formed
the meal, he had tossed off a copious draught of vodka. He ate little,
though, being in a hurry to go on with the work, and urged the others to
make haste, especially Yagustynka, who was by no means his inferior in
the salting and seasoning line, and knew as much as ever he did.
Hanka, too, did her best to give aid, and so did Yuzka, eager to stay in
the hut beside the newly killed porker, and not at all willing to go
out.
But Hanka cried out to her: “Be off at once, and order them to cart the
dung away, and lend them a hand yourself, while they are spreading it!
The sluggards! I fear the work will not be over by this evening.”
So Yuzka, much against her will, ran out into the yard, where she was
heard for a long while, venting all her ill humour on the two farm-lads,
and scolding them violently.
The cabin became noisier, little by little, as gossip after gossip
dropped in to chat in neighbourly wise, and clasp their hands, and
admire the porker.
“So fine! so laden with fat! Far finer a one than either the miller’s or
the organist’s!”
Hanka felt much pleased, and was puffed up with these praises of the
fatted beast; and though indeed she grudged the vodka, she could not
help inviting them, according to the custom among the peasants to offer
drinks, and bread and salt, on such an occasion. And she became very
talkative to all the folk who crossed the threshold one after another
and came in, as one comes into church for a short visit on the feast of
the patron saint.—Children, too, were plentiful all round the house, and
peeping in at every window.
All through Lipka, besides, there now began to be a good deal of unusual
movement: folk splashing along in the mud, and carts clattering in from
other villages, all crowding to church for their Easter confession, in
spite of the detestable roads and the dismal weather, so wretchedly
changeable! Every now and then there came a flaw of rain, and then a
warm breeze would blow athwart the orchards, or frozen snow pour down
like groats, or the sun look smiling out of the clouds and scatter its
gold over all the world. But the weather is usually so in the first days
of spring—like a young lass that laughs and cries, and is blithe or
sullen, just as it occurs to her, and she herself cannot tell why.
But no one in Hanka’s surroundings had any care for the weather just
now: work and talk went on with equal noise. Ambrose bustled about, and
kept the others lively with his merry jests. He was obliged, however, to
pay frequent visits to the church and see that everything there was
going on well: on his return, he would complain of the cold and want
something to warm him up.
“I have so well beset the priests with penitents, that neither will stir
till noon,” he said.
“Of the priest from Slupia they say,” Yagustynka observed, after a gibe
at the incumbent of Laznov which nettled Ambrose not a little, “that he
always bears a scent-bottle with him, for that he dislikes the scent of
common folk, and fans himself with his handkerchief after every
confession.”
“You hold your peace, and let priests alone!” Ambrose cried out in a
rage.
“Is Roch in church?” Hanka hastened to inquire; she too disliked the old
woman’s waspish tongue.
“He has been there all the morning, serving Masses, and putting things
in order.”
“And where is Michael, then?”
“Gone to Rzepki with the organist’s son, to make out the
confession-list.”
“‘Plough with a goose-quill, sow paper with sand: ye will get much more
pelf than by tilling the land!’” muttered Yagustynka.
“Truly it is so. He gets an egg at least for each name he puts down.”
“And the confession-tickets come to a kopek and a half! No wonder his
wallets are crammed with good things. Last week the organist’s wife sold
near upon fifteen hundred eggs.”
“Folk say they came on foot, carrying only one small bundle with them:
now they could fill over four of the biggest wagons.”
Ambrose tried to defend him. “Well, but he has lived and worked here for
a score of years and more; and the parish is a big one; and he is
hard-working, shrewd and thrifty: of course he has put money by.”
“Put money by! Money wrung from the people, and as much as he possibly
could! Ere the man will do a service to anyone, he must know what he’s
to get thereby. Why, he is paid thirty roubles at a funeral: for
what?—for thumping on the organ and bleating Latin chants!”
“At any rate, he’s a skilled craftsman in his own line, and takes great
pains to do his best.”
“Aye, aye, he is skilled: knows when to sing shrill and when gruff—and
especially how to diddle folk out of their money.”
“Another would have drunk away all his earnings; and he is breeding up
his son to become a priest.”
“To his own exceeding glory and profit,” the rancorous beldame rejoined.
At this most interesting point they broke off. Yagna had come in, and
stood petrified on the threshold.
“Is it our pig’s size that amazes you?” Yagustynka asked, with a laugh.
“Could ye not have done this work on the other side?” she stammered, red
as a peony. “My room is all befouled with it.”
“Wash and scour it, then! Ye are not short of time,” Hanka replied
coolly, with a stress on the last words.
Yagna made an angry gesture, but said no more. She walked about the
room, took up her “Rosary of the Passion,” threw a shawl over her yet
unmade bed, and left the hut in silence, her lips twitching with the
fury she sought to hide.
Yuzka, who met her in the passage, said: “Ye might well help us, we have
so much to do!”
She only stormed at her in reply, and rushed away in a frenzy. Vitek,
who had remarked which way she had gone, said she had stepped over
straight to the blacksmith’s.
“Why should she not? It will relieve her to talk of her grievance.”
“But,” Yagustynka said, lowering her voice, “ye will have him here
speedily ... and it will be war!”
“Good woman, what’s my whole life but warfare?” Hanka answered quietly,
but she felt that her words were true, and that a savage quarrel was at
hand.
“He will come in a trice,” Yagustynka declared, not without compassion.
“Fear not—I shall stand the brunt of the battle,” she replied, smiling.
Yagustynka, nodding her admiration, looked significantly at Ambrose, who
had just laid his work aside.
“I must look in at church and ring the Angelus,” he said. “I shall be
back for dinner directly.”
And so he was, and told them that the clergymen were dining, and the
miller had brought them a netful of fish as a present, and they were to
go on hearing confessions in the afternoon, as so many people were
waiting.
The dinner, though short and hurried, was well provided with liquor,
Ambrose complaining bitterly that, for such herrings—salt as Lot’s
wife—the vodka was far too weak. Then they set to work again, and he
quartered the beast, cutting off the parts fit for sausages; while
Yagustynka, having unhinged a door and made it do duty for a table,
placed the sides upon it, and was busy cutting them into flitches and
salting them carefully. Just at that moment the smith came in; his face
showed that he was fighting for self-control.
“I was not aware,” he began, sarcastically, “that ye had bought so large
a porker.”
“Well, I have—and killed it too.”
She felt somewhat frightened.
“A fine beast. It must have cost you some thirty roubles.”
He eyed it over scrutinizingly.
“’Twere hard to find a pig so thickly lined with fat,” the old woman
remarked, laughing and offering him the bacon to examine.
“’Tis Boryna’s pig!” he suddenly burst out, unable any more to contain
his rage.
“A shrewd guess!” Yagustynka jeered; “why, to know whose it is, you need
only to see the tail!”
“And by what right have ye dared to slaughter it?” he cried indignantly.
“No shouting, please. This is not a tavern.—By what right? Because Antek
sent me word by Roch to kill it.”
“And who is Antek to give orders here? Is the beast his?”
“Most surely,” she replied: her fear had gone from her now.
“No, it is ours!—For what ye have done, ye shall pay dear.”
“In this matter I am not answerable to you!”
“No?—To whom then?”
“Peace! and hold your tongue. Here lies the sick man to whom it
belongs.”
“Which you, not he, will eat!”
“But you, at any rate, shall not so much as smell it!”
“Give me,” he said, changing his tone, “one-half of the carcass. Ye
would not have me raise the devil, would ye?”
“Not one trotter of it shall you have on compulsion!”
“Then let me have a quarter—and a flitch thrown in—of your own free
will.”
“I will, if Antek orders me. Else you shall not get one bone.”
“Antek! Antek!” he cried, again roused to fury. “Is it Antek’s, then?
Are you raving?”
“It is Father’s,” she said firmly, “but Antek is now in his place and
disposes of all. Later, it shall be whose our Lord may will it to be.”
“Let him dispose in jail of what he has! If he likes husbandry, he may
play the husbandman down in Siberia, where he is to go!” he shrieked,
foaming at the mouth.
“He may go thither,” she retorted fiercely, though fear for Antek was
stabbing at her heart; “but were you yet a greater Judas than you are,
you would not gain one inch of land thereby.”
The smith’s feet were shuffling on the floor with excitement, and his
hands closing on his capote convulsively, so strong a craving he felt to
clutch her by the throat. But he still mastered himself: he was not
alone. She had no longer any fear at all: wielding the knife she used to
cut the strips of flesh, she looked on the man with quiet scorn. After a
time he sat down, lit a cigarette, and gazed about the room with
red-rimmed eyes, revolving something in his mind. Presently he got up,
and spoke to her calmly.
“Come round to the other side of the hut; we may yet find something to
agree upon.”
Wiping her hands, she went out of the room, but left the door ajar.
“I wish not only not to go to law, but not even to quarrel,” he began,
puffing at his cigarette.
“Because it will not serve,” she retorted.
“Did Father-in-law say aught to you yesternight?”
The smith was by now quite friendly and smiling.
“Oh, no; he lay as still as he lies now.” Full of suspicion, she was on
her guard to divulge nothing.
“That pig is but a small matter; let us trouble no longer about it. Cut
it up ... eat it up by yourselves, just as you please: no very great
loss for me.—One often says things of which one repents afterwards.—Pray
forget what I said.—I want to speak of something more important. You
ought to know that they talk in the village of cash—large sums—concealed
within this hut....” He paused and fixed his piercing eyes upon her
face. “Now ’twere well worth while to seek for it, lest, should he die
(which God forbid!), it might be mislaid, or fall into some stranger’s
hand.”
“But will he say where he has hidden it?”
“To you he might, would you but draw him out with cunning words.”
“Well, I will do my best; but he must first come to his wits again.”
“And if ye keep it secret, and we find the money, then we might share
and share alike. Nay, if the sum were large enough, a part might serve
to set Antek free. Let no one else know of it: why should any know?
Yagna’s deed of gift makes her quite rich enough; we might even go to
law, and have it annulled.—As to Gregory, think how much he has received
during his service in the army!” He approached her more closely.
“You are right ... quite, quite right,” she stammered, struggling hard
to give him no inkling of the secret she knew.
“I think he must have concealed it somewhere about the cabin; what think
ye?”
“How should I know? He never spoke a word to me about that.”
“But he said something yesternight ... something about corn, I think?”
the smith suggested.
“Aye. He said it was to be sown.”
“About barrels too, did he not?” he persisted, looking her intently in
the face.
“Of course. The seed-corn that’s in the barrels,” she made answer,
apparently not making out to what those questions were tending.
He cursed silently, with bitter disappointment. And yet he felt more and
more that she must be privy to the secret. Her face was so stiffly set,
her eyes so carefully deprived of expression.
“Tell no one this thing I confide to you.”
“Am I such a tale-bearer and everlasting gossip?”
“Well, well, I only caution you.—Now give good heed. The old man has had
a glimmer already: his wits may quite come back to him any day.”
“God grant it be soon!”
His glance lingered over her. At length, pulling at his moustache, he
left her to herself and went out, she following him the while with a
contemptuous look.
“A Judas, a traitor, and a thief!”
Exploding with hate, she took a few steps after him.—It was not for the
first time that he had flourished before her eyes the awful possibility
of Siberia’s mines and Antek working in them, fettered to a wheelbarrow!
Not that she believed implicitly all he said; she knew that he spoke out
of spite and to make her afraid, so as to get the most he could out of
her by bullying.
Nevertheless, she was in great dread, and had carefully sought to be
informed what Antek’s punishment might be: she had no hope that he would
be acquitted.
True, he had acted in defence of his father; but there must be some
punishment for the death of the forester. There must!
Such was the opinion of all the more intelligent folk. She had been to
consult a lawyer in the town, with a letter from his Reverence to
introduce her. He had explained that the penalty might be either very
heavy or very light; that patience and money spent without grudging were
absolutely requisite here. But she was most terrified by the village
people, who shared the blacksmith’s view of things.
The words he had now spoken had therefore oppressed her most cruelly.
She went on with her work, but felt almost unable to stand; and
conversation was impossible. Moreover, when the smith had gone away, his
wife came to tend the sick man, drive away the flies (there were none!),
and certainly spy over all she did.
Magda, however, was soon tired of the task, and offered to help her in
the work. But Hanka replied:
“Do not trouble, we can do all by ourselves: have you not work enough in
your house?”
Her tone was so decided that Magda gave up the attempt, and only tried
at times to join timidly in the talk, being by nature a shy and reticent
woman.
But that same evening, who should make her appearance once more but
Yagna, in her mother’s company!
They greeted her as if on excellent terms, and in so friendly and
flattering a way that Hanka, touched by their kindness, answered them in
like manner, sparing neither pleasant speeches nor vodka, though she
kept on the watch nevertheless. But Dominikova put the glass away from
her.
“What! in the Holy Week? How could I drink vodka at such a time?”
Hanka maintained that it was no sin to drink even then, on such an
occasion and in one’s own house.
“Ah!” groaned Dominikova, “one is always but too ready to find an excuse
to let oneself go, and enjoy pleasure!”
“Mistress, drink to me,” Ambrose exclaimed; “I have not an organist’s
scruples.”
“To you the very sound of glasses when they clink is a temptation,”
Dominikova grumbled, as she set to work at the sick man’s bandages.
“Poor creature!” she cried in pity; “lying there insensible, with all
God’s world lost to him!”
“And not to taste sausage or vodka again for ever!” Yagustynka chimed
in, turning the pity into a gibe.
Dominikova rebuked her tartly: “You laugh at everything, you!”
“Shall weeping lessen my pain? My laughter is all my fortune.”
Ambrose remarked: “Let those only that have sown evil garner in sorrow,
and atone for it by penance!” This was a shrewd hit at Dominikova, who
retorted, glaring on him sternly:
“They say truly that Ambrose, though he serves in church, curries favour
with sin in order to enjoy the good things of this life!” And she added,
lowering her tone threateningly: “But he alone will turn away from the
good and befriend the wicked, who considereth not the punishment which
he shall receive hereafter!”
Silence fell upon all. Ambrose worked on, though surly. He had a sharp
retort ready, but kept it back, knowing well that anything he said would
be reported to his Reverence the next day, and after Mass at latest: it
was to some purpose that the old dame was such a church-goer. Everyone,
besides, shrank from the fixed gaze of those owlish eyes of hers; even
Yagustynka, the defiant, was overawed and quailed before her.
Yes, and so did all the village. More than one had experienced the power
of those evil eyes; more than one, on whom she had laid a spell, now
groaned with twisted limbs, or in the clutch of some dire disease!
They worked on then, with bowed heads: only her face, rugged, withered,
and white as bleached wax, was seen towering amongst them in the room.
She too remained silent, along with Yagna; but they were both so active
and diligent that Hanka had not the heart to refuse the aid they were
giving.
But after Ambrose had left, called away to church by the priest’s
servant, they remained alone, diligently packing flitches and pork into
the tubs and barrels.
“The meat will be cooler in the larder that’s on this side, for the fire
here is much smaller,” the old dame decided, rolling the vessels in
there at once, with the help of Yagna.
All this was done so quickly that they were put in the larder before
Hanka had time even to protest. She was extremely mortified, and,
immediately calling Pete and Yuzka to her aid, carried over to her own
side all that remained.
At dusk and by lamplight they set to making sausages, blood-puddings,
and brawn. Hanka, whose annoyance had not passed away, sat mincing the
materials with a sort of dark rage.
“Leave the things here, for her to eat or steal? Not I!—... But oh, the
cunning hag!” she hissed through her clenched teeth.
“To-morrow morning, when she has gone to church, you can carry
everything out into your own larder without noise or fuss. Surely she
will not break in and take it back by force!” Such was the advice of
Yagustynka, as she pressed the ingredients of the sausages into the long
dried guts, writhing upon the table like serpents, and every now and
then hung them up to be smoked in the chimney.
“Ah! the stroke was planned between them, and they came on purpose for
that!”
She was exasperated.
“The sausages will all be made ere Ambrose be back here,” the old woman
observed.
Hanka would speak no more, absorbed in work, and in planning how to get
the hams and flitches into her possession again.
The fire crackled on the hearth with a lively flame; the whole room was
in a glow, and the various ingredients of the blood-puddings were
bubbling in several cauldrons.
“O Lord! my mouth waters at the very smell!” sighed Vitek, sniffing
greedily.
“Do not stand sniffing here, or I will know why!” cried Hanka. “Give the
kine to drink, fill the mangers with hay, and put straw under them. ’Tis
late already ... when will you have done it all?”
“Pete is coming; I cannot do all by myself.”
“And whither has he gone?”
“What, know ye not? He is helping them to put things in order on the
other side.”
“Oho!—Hey, you, Pete!” she cried, calling out into the passage. “See to
the cattle for the night—at once!”
Her tone, as she gave that order, had been such that the man came out
instantly into the yard.
“Let her stir herself and clean her own room at least! Look at her, that
grand lady—will not soil her hands—must needs employ a manservant!” So
said Hanka, in a towering passion, whilst pouring out a steaming potful
of liver and chitterlings. The sound of a bell and a cart clattering by
outside gave another turn to her thoughts.
It was the priest, carrying the Holy Viaticum to someone, as her father,
old Bylitsa, who then came in, told her.
“But who can it be? No one was ill, so far as I know.”
“He has passed the Voyt’s cabin!” Vitek, out of breath, came shouting
outside the window.
“To one of the _Komorniki_? I think not.”
“Perhaps to your people, the Prycheks, Yagustynka; they live that way.”
“Ah, nothing ever was the matter with them, the miscreants; no evil ever
comes nigh them!” she said, in a faltering voice: though constantly at
odds with her children, she felt a quiver of anxiety.
“I’ll see how matters stand and return at once.” And she hurried out.
But the evening dragged on, and yet she was not back.—Ambrose, who had
returned, said the priest had been called in to Agata, a kinswoman of
the Klembas: she had come back from begging only the Saturday before.
“But how is that? Is she not at the Klembas’?”
“No; she has removed to die: either at Koziol’s or at the Prycheks’.”
There was no more talk then, for there was much work to get through,
especially as both Yuzka and Hanka were often obliged to leave it for
the byre or the stable.
It was dark outside, and irksome within.
A chilly rain was pelting, and the wind lashed the walls, whistled
through the orchards, made the trees rustle and murmur, and sometimes
blew down the chimneys, scattering fire-brands about.
It was hard upon midnight when all the work was over—and Yagustynka had
not yet returned.
“In such foul weather, she must have been loath to grope her way back!”
Hanka thought, while she patrolled the premises before going to bed.
Truly, it had been a pity to turn a dog out of doors on such a night!
The roof creaked with the wild blasts; all over the sky, brown masses of
rain-clouds were pouring down their heavy burden of water; and nowhere
on high was there the least twinkle of starlight. Everybody else had
long ago gone to sleep; the wind danced and revelled in the fields, and
swept great sheets of water from off the pond.
So they waited no longer for her, but went to bed.
She appeared the next morning, but as louring and sullen as the swampy
miry day itself. She just warmed her hands at the cabin fire, and then
made for the granary, to pick out seed-potatoes from the heap which had
been dumped down on the threshing-floor.
She was mostly alone at that work, Yuzka having to go and scatter the
dung which Pete had been carting since daybreak. Having been soundly
rated by Hanka for sloth on the day before, he now, to make amends,
stormed at Vitek, flogged the horses furiously, and made them splash
through the mud at full speed.
“The rascal!” muttered the old woman. “To punish the horses because he
himself was lazy!”
When Yuzka spoke to her, she gave her no answer, but sat gloomily,
hiding her eyes red with tears under the apron she had thrown over her
head.
Hanka looked in, but only once. She was waiting for Yagna to come out,
that she might have an opportunity both to take the meat over to her own
side, and to examine the corn-barrels. But, as if of set purpose, Yagna
never left the hut.
Impatient, Hanka at last went in to see Boryna, and then—apparently
seeking for something—she entered the larder.
“Whatever ye want I can find for you!” Yagna exclaimed, and, seeing her
go in, followed before she had done more than plunge her hand into the
corn.—Fruitlessly; but the money might be lying quite at the bottom. She
left the place; and, certain that Yagna was on the watch, resolved to
put off the attempt to a more convenient season.
“And now for the gifts we must make,” she thought, looking sorrowfully
at the sausages that dangled in a row from a horizontal pole. Boryna and
all the foremost husbandmen were in the habit, whenever they killed a
pig, to send their next relations and best friends a sausage, or some
other dainty bit.
“’Tis hard, in truth; but you can do no otherwise, or they would say you
grudge them,” Bylitsa advised her, guessing aright what was in her
thoughts.
In spite, then, of the temptation to shirk that duty, she put the
intended presents on a number of plates and dishes, now substituting a
larger for a smaller piece, now the reverse, now adding, now taking away
a blood-pudding ... and so on: until she had done, and, dejected and
weary, called for Yuzka.
“Put on your best garments, and take these things round.”
“O Lord! what a quantity of meat is here!”
“What can I do? I must give it away. We have to live with folk.—‘Jack
his flail can whisk alone, but not dance and frisk alone.’—This big
piece take to Uncle’s wife. She hates and rates me; but there’s no help
for it.—This to the Voyt: a rascal, but on good terms with Matthias, and
(it may be) serviceable one day.—For Magda and her smith, a whole
blood-pudding, a sausage, and a piece of bacon. They shall not say we
have eaten Father’s pig by ourselves. Talk against us they will, of
course, but less.—This sausage is for Prychkova. She’s saucy, bitter of
tongue, but one of our best friends.—And this last piece for Klembova.”
“Shall Dominikova get naught?”
“Later in the afternoon. Of course she shall. She’s to be dealt with as
filth: with care and from afar.... Now take these things round
separately, and waste no time in talk with other girls, for there is
work at home for you.”
“Do give Nastka something: they are all so poor!” Yuzka said
beseechingly. “They have scarce wherewith to buy salt!”
“Let her come: she shall get something.—Father, take this to Veronka;
she was to have looked in yesterday.”
“She had to clean the miller’s cabin in the afternoon; they are
expecting visitors.”
Hanka, having sent Yuzka off, and put on a warmer dress, ran out to see
that the lads worked properly, and to assist Yagustynka.
To the old woman, now so strangely reticent, she said: “We hoped you
would come back for supper.”
“What I saw was supper enough for me—and it lies on my stomach yet.”
“It was Agata, I believe?”
“Yes, poor thing! Passing away ... and in Koziol’s hut!”
“Why is she not at the Klembas’?”
“Because those folk, as long as a kinsman asks for naught, or comes
full-handed, allow him to claim kindred; but would set their dogs on any
other, how near soever!”
“What say you? Surely they have not driven her out?”
“Well, she came to them on Saturday, and was taken with a sickness that
same night.... They say that Klembova took away her feather-bed, and
turned her out almost naked.”
“Klembova? Can it be? So good a woman!—Nay, it must be a slander.”
“I invent naught, and tell you only what mine ears have heard.”
“At Koziol’s too! Who would have thought the woman so merciful?”
“‘For ready money—’tis strange, but true—even a priest will be kind to
you!’—Koziol’s wife has got a score of _zloty_ out of Agata in cash. For
that sum she will keep her till she drops off—which she expects to do
any day.... Funeral extra, of course.—She will give up the ghost one of
these days: there will be no long waiting, oh, no!”
She broke down, unable to choke down a sob.
“What ails you, my dear?” Hanka asked, in a kindly tone.
“I have supped full of human woes, and have eaten over measure! One’s
heart is not a stone; one tries to harden it by churlishness towards
everyone; but it will not do. And there comes a time when it can bear no
more, and crumbles away to sand with the pain of it!”
She burst into a tempest of tears, shaking all over; but, after a time,
went on speaking, but with such heat and bitterness that the words
burned into Hanka’s tender heart.
“And to this desolation there is no end—none! When the priest left
Agata, I stayed by her side. Then there came one from over the
water—Philip’s wife—crying out that her eldest daughter was a-dying....
Away I hurried to her.—Lord, what a hut! as cold as ice itself!
Window-panes gone, wisps of straw instead. Only one bed: the others
sleep on litter, like kennelled dogs.—Aye, the girl is dying, but of
what? Of hunger! Their last potato is eaten, their feather-bed sold:
every litre of groats is got from the miller by begging, for no one will
lend aught to tide things over till harvest. Who could pay? Philip is in
jail with the rest of them.—Scarcely had I left these, when Gregory’s
wife told me that Florka Prychkova had been brought to bed and was in
want of aid.... Vile wretches they are, and have defrauded me: but I
went notwithstanding. In their hut, too, misery shows her teeth! Lots of
children—Florka abed—not a kopek of savings—and no help from anywhither.
True, the land is theirs: but can they eat it?—No one to cook for
them.... And their land is untilled, for Adam, her goodman, is in prison
likewise.—A son has been born to her—a strong lusty little fellow—but
will he get food to live? Florka is thin as a lath—not one drop of milk
can she give him; and their cow has but just calved. All is for the
worst everywhere. No one to work, and no work to be got; and neither
money nor help from any quarter.... Oh, would that our Lord might send
all these poorest folk a merciful death! They would not then suffer so!”
“Has anyone in the village aught to spare?” said Hanka. “All are poor,
and the cry of misery is heard everywhere.”
“‘Who has no goodwill shirks his duty still.’—I do not say this to you;
the farm is not yours, and I know well what ye have to undergo. But
there be those who might do something: the miller—the priest—the
organist—and many others.”
“Perhaps they would, if they were but told of all,” Hanka said, taking
their part.
“He that has a kindly heart needs no telling, and finds it out by
himself. My dear, they are well aware of what the poor have to endure:
it is on their very poverty that they thrive and grow fat. Why, ’tis now
the miller’s harvest-home, when folk are crowding round him for flour
and groats, giving up their last mite to him, or taking loans at high
interest, to be paid in future work: money for food must be found, even
should one be forced to sell one’s bed to the Jew!”
“Indeed, no one is willing to give things gratis,” Hanka said with a
heavy sigh, as the memory of her recent past surged up.
“I sat with Florka for a long time,” Yagustynka went on to say; “and
many women came in, telling us what was going on in Lipka. They said——”
“Mercy on us!” Hanka suddenly exclaimed, starting to her feet. A gust
had just blown the door in, so violently as almost to wrench it off its
hinges. And she had closed it with such care, and placed stakes to prop
it up against the wind!
“With such a gale as this, I fear there will soon be more rain.”
“As it is, the carts afield already sink axle-deep in mire!”
“But with a few days of warm sun, the ground will soon be dry again:
’tis spring.”
“Ah, if we could but begin to plant potatoes ere Eastertide!”
So they went on talking, busy with their work, and the potatoes drummed
upon the floor continuously: those too small thrown on to one heap, and
the damaged ones on to another.
“These will fatten your sow, and the kine will drink the boiled water.”
But Hanka was scarcely listening, pondering how to get at her
father-in-law’s money. At times she looked out through the open door at
the trees, waving and wrestling with the blasts, that were cold and
damp, and pungent with the smell of the dunghill close by. The farm-yard
was empty, save for a few fowls running about with ruffled feathers. The
geese all sat in a corner close to the hedge, and gathered their
chuckling little ones under their wings. Now and again Pete came in,
driving his empty wagon, and slapping his arms against his sides; then,
giving the horses a bundle of hay, and (Vitek aiding) filling the cart
with dung, he pushed it on over the ruts and holes, and drove away into
the fields once more.
Many a time, too, did Yuzka hurry in, loud-voiced, blowzed, breathless,
on her way to somebody’s cabin with presents, and chattering all the way
as she came and went.
Unquestioned, she talked and talked, and was presently seen starting
again, bearing a dish carefully wrapped up in a napkin.
“A chatterbox that girl is, but no fool,” Yagustynka observed.
“No fool, indeed; only she has naught in her head but mischief and
games.”
“What would you have? Such a tiny thing!”
“Vitek!” Hanka cried on a sudden. “Someone has entered the cabin. See
who it is.”
“’Tis the blacksmith, just come in.”
A misgiving took hold of her, and she went straightway to her father’s
side, where he was lying—on his back, as usual—while Yagna sewed at the
window. No one else was there.
“What has become of Michael?”
“Somewhere about, seeking a key he lent to Matthias not long ago,” she
explained, without looking Hanka in the face.
The latter went into the passage, into her own room, where Bylitsa was
sitting with the children by the fire, and making them little toy
windmills—even into the farm-yard buildings: he was nowhere in sight.
Then back she darted straight to the larder on her father’s side, though
the door was shut.
And there she saw the blacksmith, standing beside a corn-barrel, with
his arms buried in the corn up to the elbows, and seeking something
there with might and main!
“What!” she cried with a gasp; “your key is hidden in the corn, is it?”
And she placed herself in front of him with a threatening air.
“No.... I am seeing ... whether it is not mildewed ... and whether it
will do for seed-corn,” he said, stuttering, taken quite by surprise.
“What business of yours is that? Say, what brings you in here?” she
cried.
Unwillingly, he drew his arms out, and muttered with ill-concealed
anger:
“Ye spy upon me as if I were a thief!”
“How should I know what business brings you in here? Here’s a fellow who
enters other people’s premises: why? I find him groping in the
corn-barrels: why should he not also wrench the padlocks off, or break
open the chests?” Her voice was rising to a scream.
“Did I not tell you yesterday what we have to look for?” he answered,
striving to be calm.
“What ye said was all a blind. You sought to throw dust in my eyes,
while you were after something else. But I saw through your plotting,
you traitor, you!”
“Hanka!” he shrieked, to terrify her; “stop that talk, or I will stop
your mouth!”
“Would ye? Lay but a finger on me, and I’ll raise such an outcry that
half the village will be here in a trice, to learn what sort of a
jail-bird you are!”
As she uttered the threat, he cast one more glance around; then, with a
blasphemous oath, he left the room; exchanging with her, as he did so,
looks that—had it been possible—would have stabbed to the very heart.
Hanka’s outbreak had completely upset her, but a cup of water presently
brought her round again.
“It must be found!—And also concealed in a safe place: for what money
soever that man finds, he will make off with,” was her mental comment,
going back to the granary. But, half-way there, she stopped and went
back to the cottage. Opening the door, she apostrophized Yagna thus:
“You who sit here in the cabin to watch over it, how do you let a
stranger enter the inmost room?”
Yagna answered scornfully: “Michael is not a stranger: he has as much
right in there as you have.”
“A dog barks, and you lie! Ye two are in league together; but mark well
what I say.—If aught disappear from the cottage, then, as sure as
there’s a God in heaven, I’ll bring action and denounce you as his
accomplice. Remember that!” she screamed, infuriated.
Yagna, snatching the first weapon at hand, leaped from her seat.
“Would you fight me? Do but try: I’ll tear the beauty off your dainty
face, and paint it such a scarlet that your own mother shall not know
you!”
And she went on upbraiding and vilifying her to the fullest powers of
her voice and of her enmity.
How this might have ended cannot be guessed. They were about to close
with each other, when Roch happened to come in. This brought Hanka to
her senses in so far that she spoke no more. But she rushed from the
room, and the door slammed like thunder behind her.
Yagna remained still for some time, her bosom palpitating, her lips
trembling like one with the ague. At length, flinging into a corner the
small hand-mangle she had clutched, she threw herself upon the bed, and
gave way to an uncontrollable burst of pitiful wailing.
Meanwhile, Hanka, on her side of the house, was telling Roch what had
taken place. He listened patiently to her tale; but it was so incoherent
and broken with sobs that he could scarcely make out a word, and rebuked
her very severely. Putting aside the food she had set before him, he
reached out for his cap, in great indignation.
“I am going away, never to set eyes on Lipka again, since ye behave
thus! Oh, how all this must rejoice the Evil One, aye, and those Jews
who make a mock at us Christians, calling us brawling idiots! O merciful
Jesus! was there too little of distress and sickness and starvation,
that, to crown all, women must also fly at one another!”
He stood panting after this appeal; and Hanka, seized with contrition
and dread lest he should leave them in anger, kissed his hand and
earnestly begged for pardon.
“Ah!” she added, “if ye but knew how hard it is to dwell with her! She
does everything to spite and injure me.... Her very being here is a
wrong done to us all!... So many an acre of land made over to her!...
And then—know ye not what manner of woman she is? and what she does with
young men?” (No, it was beyond her power to bring in Antek’s name.) “And
now,” she added with bated breath, “they say that she is sinning with
the Voyt!—Therefore, when I behold her, all within me seethes with
hatred, even to slaying!”
“Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord! She too is human, and she feels it,
if any do her wrong. And for her sins she must some day suffer heavy
chastisement. I tell you, then, do no wrong to her.”
“What! have I wronged her in aught?”
She stood amazed, unable to conceive in what way Yagna could have
suffered wrong at her hands.
Roch ate a morsel of bread, looking out into vacancy meanwhile, and
thinking deeply. At last he departed, after having patted the heads of
the little ones that came to his knees.
“One of these days, I shall look in again at eventide. But now I say to
you only this: Let her alone, do your duty, and our Lord will see to all
the rest.”