“Pray, Hanka, may I go home?” Yuzka entreated, laying her head down upon
the pew-seat.
“Aye, do: run about everywhere like a silly calf!” said Hanka, rebuking
her, and looking up from her rosary.
“But I feel so faint, so weary!”
“Do not be so restless: it will be over soon.”
His Reverence was just ending a low Mass for Boryna’s soul, which the
family had retained for the octave of his death.
All his nearest relations sat in the side-pews. Yagna and her mother
alone were kneeling in front of the altar. Somewhere in the choir, Agata
was pattering prayers aloud.
The church, cool and quiet, was dark, except for one streak of light
that shot in through the open door, and lit up the place as far as the
pulpit.
Michael, the organist’s pupil, served Mass, jingling the tiny bells very
loud, as usual, and also as usual continually turning his head about
after the swallows which were darting in and out of the place.
The priest having ended Mass, they all went out to the churchyard; but
as they were going past the belfry, Ambrose called them.
“His Reverence wishes to speak to you.”
And he came up almost at once, with his breviary under his arm, and
wiping his bald crown. Having welcomed them kindly, he said:
“My friends, I want to say how well you have acted in having a Mass said
for the deceased: it will help his soul towards its eternal rest. It
will, I assure you.”
He then took snuff, sneezed violently, and asked them if they intended
dividing the property that day. And, on receiving the answer that this
was the date after the funeral on which the division was usual, he
continued:
“Then I may say a few words about it to you. In dividing the property,
remember to do all things by common consent, and to act justly. Let me
hear of no quarrels, no dissensions. If Boryna knew that you tore—as
wolves tear a sheep—that estate to the prosperity of which he gave his
whole life, he would turn in his grave. Moreover, God forbid that ye
wrong any one of the orphans! Yuzka is but a simple child as yet;
Gregory is far away. Let each have his own, even to the uttermost
kopek!—Also, when making the division, have a care to respect his known
will. His soul, peradventure, sees you at this very moment!... As I am
always telling you in my sermons, concord is the great thing—it upholds
all in the world: naught was ever done with discord—naught but sin and
the transgression of God’s law.—Further, ye should not forget the
church. He was always liberal, and neither for lights nor for Masses,
nor for any other need, did he ever grudge his money. Wherefore did God
bless the work of his hands.”
He continued for some time in this strain. They embraced his knees with
grateful thanks. Yuzka, weeping loudly, fell on her knees to kiss his
hand. He took her to his bosom, kissed her on the crown of her head, and
said soothingly:
“To weep is foolish, little one: the orphan is God’s especial care.”
Hanka, deeply touched, whispered: “Her own father could not have been
more loving.” He was very much moved himself, for he hastily brushed a
tear away, offered snuff to the blacksmith, and changed the
conversation.
“Well, are ye coming to terms with the Squire?”
“We are; five of us go to the Manor this very day.”
“God be praised! I will say a Mass to that intention on my own account.”
“I think the village ought to have a Votive Mass sung with the greatest
solemnity. What! Does not each of us get a new farm—as it were for
nothing?”
“You are right, Michael. And I have said a good word for you to the
Squire.—Now, go your ways, and remember: Concord and justice!”
“And—hist, Michael!” he called after the smith, who was leaving; “come
ye round later to see about my curricle: the right spring is bent and
grazes the axle-tree.”
“Oh, the bulky priest of Laznov has weighed it down; ’tis very like.”
And so they all went to Boryna’s, Yagna the last, going with her mother,
who could scarcely drag herself along.
It being a work-day, there were but few people on the mill-pond road:
only a few children playing about. Though early in the morning, the sun
was hot, but agreeably tempered by the wind, which blew hard enough to
make the orchards toss their branches about, laden with ripe red
cherries, and the corn beat against the fences in boisterous waves.
The huts stood open, and their gates as well; the bedding lay spread
upon the hedgerows, and everybody was out in the fields. Some were
bringing in the last of the hay, which filled the nostrils with aromatic
scent, and left long strips that waved like streaming Jews’ beards, from
the trees the heaped-up wagons passed under.
They walked along, pondering the question of how the property should be
divided.
A ditty rose, wafted on the wind—possibly from the fields where they
were at work on the potatoes; from the mill came the beating of the
water-wheels, mingling with the strokes of a washerwoman’s batlet hard
by.
“The mill is continually grinding now,” Magda remarked.
“Aye, the days before harvest are the miller’s harvest.”
Hanka sighed. “Times are much harder this year than last. Everyone
complains bitterly, and the _Komorniki_ are really starving.”
“And the Koziols,” the blacksmith added, “are prowling about to snap up
anything they can lay hands on!”
“Say not that. The poor creatures keep themselves alive as best they
can. Yesterday Kozlova sold her ducklings to the organist’s wife, and
got some money thereby.”
“They will soon drink it all,” Magda returned. “I will say no word to
their hurt; but ’tis strange that my boy found the feathers of the drake
I lost during father’s funeral, behind their cow-byre.”
“And who was it,” Yuzka asked, “that made off with our bedding that very
same day?”
“When is their suit against the Voyt to come off?”
“Not so soon. But Ploshka is for them, and they will make things hot for
the Voyt and his wife.”
“Ploshka was ever a meddler with other folk’s matters.”
“Our friend, hoping to become Voyt, is currying favour everywhere.”
Here Yankel passed by, dragging and pulling at the mane of a hobbled
horse, that lashed out and resisted with all its might and they laughed
and made merry at his expense.
“Oh, ’tis well for you that ye can laugh! What trouble I have with the
beast!”
“Stuff it with straw, fix a new tail on it, and take it to some fair: it
will never do as a horse, but ye may sell it for a cow!” the smith
bawled. Their laughter became a roar, for the horse had jerked himself
free, leaped into the pond, and, in spite of threats and entreaties,
lain down wallowing in the water.
“A remarkable brute. Bought of a gipsy, no doubt?”
“Set a pail of vodka before it: ye may then perhaps tempt it out!”
joined in the organist’s wife, who sat by the pond, watching a flock of
ducklings, as downy as yellow catkins, while a hen ran cackling along
the bank in dismay.
“’Tis a fine lot.—From the Koziols, I suppose?”
“Yes. But they are always running away to the pond.” And she tried to
call them back, flinging them handfuls of Turkish wheat into the water.
Seeing them, however, making for the other bank, she went after them in
a hurry.
As soon as they had arrived, and Hanka was busy over the breakfast, the
blacksmith set to prowl about every corner of the cabin and all the
premises, even exploring the potato-pits. At last Hanka could not help
observing:
“Think ye any potatoes are missing?”
“I never,” he answered, “buy a pig in a poke.”
“Ye know the place of everything better than I do myself,” she said,
stiffly, pouring out the coffee. “Come, Dominikova! Come, Yagna! Come
and join us!”
For those two had, on arriving, shut themselves up in the opposite room.
No one was at first willing to open the conversation. Hanka, extremely
cautious and guarded, pressed them all to eat, and poured out coffee
abundantly, but kept her eyes carefully all the time on the smith, who
was prying about from his place, darting glances in every direction, and
clearing his throat again and again. Yagna sat louring and mournful, her
eyes glistening as if they had been quite recently full of tears. At her
side, Dominikova talked in whispers. Yuzka was the only one to chatter
freely, which she did just as usual, as she flew from one pot to
another, full of boiling potatoes.
After a long tedious pause, the smith broached the subject.
“Well. How shall we divide the property?”
Hanka gave a start; but she at once recovered herself, and replied with
calm and evidently after having thought it out well:
“How are we to divide it at all? I am here only to watch over my
goodman’s estate, and have no power to decide aught. When Antek returns,
he will see to the division.”
“But when will he come back? And things cannot drag on so.”
“They must! As they did during Father’s illness, so they shall until
Antek’s return.”
“But he is not the only inheritor.”
“But, he being the eldest son, the land comes down to him from his
father.”
“He has not more right to it than any of us.”
“Ye also may have your share of the land, if Antek prefers it so. I
shall not quarrel over this with you: the decision is not mine.”
“Yagna!” her mother urged; “say a word about your claim.”
“Why should I? They know of it well enough.”
Hanka turned a deep red, and kicked Lapa, that had curled up beneath her
feet. She hissed between her clenched teeth:
“Aye, the wrong done to us, we remember it well!”
“As you say. Wild words are of no account here, but the six acres
are—those made over to Yagna by her late goodman.”
“If the deed of gift is in your hands, none can snatch it away,” Magda
growled angrily. She had hitherto been sitting speechless and giving
suck to her baby.
“True; and we have it duly signed and attested.”
“Well, all must wait, and Yagna with the rest.”
“Of course. But she may take away her personal belongings at once: her
cow, her calf, her swine, her geese....”
“No!” the smith interrupted in a hard voice. “All those things are
common property, and to be shared equally by all.”
“By all? Is that your will? No one can take from her my
wedding-present!” And, raising her voice, “Perchance,” she cried, “ye
would likewise divide her petticoats amongst you—and her feather-bed
likewise ... eh?”
“I did but jest; and ye fly out at me at once!”
“Because I know you to the bottom of your heart!”
“But now,” he went on, “to what purpose is all this prating? You are
right, Hanka; we must needs wait till Antek comes back.—And I have
presently to go in haste and meet the Squire: I am stayed for.” And he
rose.
But, having caught sight of his father-in-law’s sheepskin, hanging in
the corner, he offered to pull it down.
“This would be just the thing for me.”
“Touch it not: it is hanging there to dry,” Hanka said.
“Well, then, let me have those boots. Only the uppers are in good
condition, and they too are patched,” he pleaded, trying to get them
down.
“Not one thing is to be touched. Should you take aught, they will say
that half of the household goods have been carried off. Let an inventory
be made first, and officially. Till then, I will not allow one stake to
come out of a hedge.”
“Ha!” said Magda; “but Father’s bedding is gone, and will not be down in
the inventory.”
“I have told you what came to pass. Directly after his death, I spread
it on the hedge to air; and one came by night and stole it.... I could
not see to everything, all alone.”
“Strange that a thief should have been so ready at hand!”
“Do you mean by that I am lying now, and stole it then?”
“Be quiet, Magda, no quarreling.... He that stole it, let him have his
winding-sheet cut out of it!”
“Why, the feathers alone weighed thirty pounds!”
“Hold your tongue, I say!” the blacksmith shouted at his wife, and asked
Hanka to come out with him into the farm-yard: he wished, he said, to
look at the swine.
She went with him, but well on her guard.
“I would fain give you good advice.”
She listened attentive, wondering what it could be.
“Ye must, one of these evenings, and ere the inventory is made, drive
two of the kine to my byre. We can entrust the sow to our cousin, and
stow away all we can at our acquaintances’.—I will let you know with
whom.—Ye will declare in the inventory that the corn has all been sold
to Yankel: give him a couple of bushels, and he will bear witness to
anything. The miller will take one colt, and it may feed in his paddock.
Of the vessels and implements, some may be hidden among the potatoes,
some in the rye-fields.... ’Tis friendly advice I am giving you!... They
all do the same—all that are not fools.... You have been working to
death: ’tis just ye should get a larger share.... To me you need only
give a few crumbs. And fear nothing: I will help you through the whole
business; aye, and make it my affair, too, that ye shall get all the
land for your own!... Only hearken to me: none can give better advice
than I.—Why, even the Squire takes mine gladly.—Well, what say you?”
She answered in slow tones, looking at the man steadfastly and with
scorn:
“Thus much: even as I will give up naught that’s mine, so too am I not
covetous of aught else!”
He staggered as if from a stunning blow—then glared at her in fury and
hissed:
“Besides, I would not breathe a word to anyone of how ye despoiled the
old man!”
“Breathe what ye choose to whom ye choose!—But I will tell Antek of your
advice, and he shall speak to you on the matter!”
He scarcely could swallow down an imprecation. But he only spat on the
ground, and walked off hurriedly, calling to his wife through the open
window:
“Magda, have an eye to all things, lest there be yet more thefts here!”
But as he passed, with what disdain Hanka eyed him!
Maddened by her scorn, he made off, but meeting the Voyt’s wife, who
just entered the enclosure, stopped to confer with her for some time,
angrily and with clenched fists.
She came bringing an official document with her.
“’Tis for you, Hanka: the policeman has brought it in from the bureau.”
“About Antek, perchance!” she thought in great trepidation, taking the
paper in her apron-covered hand.
“I think it concerns Gregory. My goodman is out—gone to the District
office—and the policeman only said there was something about Gregory
being dead, or....”
“Jesu Maria!” Yuzka shrieked, and Magda started to her feet in horror.
Helplessly, seized with overwhelming fear, they turned the ominous paper
about.
“You perhaps, Yagna, could understand it,” Hanka said beseechingly.
They stood round her, choking with suspense and dread; but Yagna, after
a long try at spelling it out, gave up the attempt.
“I cannot read it: ’tis not written in our language.”
“Nor penned in her presence either!” the Voyt’s wife sneered. “Other
things there are, however, in which she is more learned!”
“Go ye your ways,” Dominikova snarled, “and let quiet folks be.”
But the Voyt’s wife would not miss the opportunity to strike a blow at
her.
“Ye are good at rebuking your neighbours. But ye had better have kept
your daughter from lying in wait for other women’s husbands!”
“Peace, peace, good woman,” Hanka interfered, foreseeing what was
coming; but the Voyt’s wife only grew more enraged.
“Oh, I will say my say now, if never again!—Her, who has poisoned my
life so, I never will forgive till my dying day!”
“Well, then, say your say! A cur will bark louder than you can!”
Dominikova growled. She took it coolly, but Yagna flushed red as a
beetroot. Yet, though overwhelmed with shame, she nevertheless took
refuge in reckless stubbornness; and as if to spite the other, she held
her head up, and fastened her eyes upon her enemy with a taunting
expression and a malicious smile.
The look, the smile, infuriated the other, and she denounced her
lubricity in a torrent of invectives.
“Your words are frenzy, you are drunk with hate!” the old dame said, to
draw her anger away; “your husband will answer grievously before God for
my daughter’s misfortune.”
“Misfortune!—Aye, ’tis an innocent young maiden he has seduced!... Ha,
such a maiden that with everyone and under every green bush....”
“Hold your wicked tongue, or—blind as I am—my hands will surely find
their way to your hair!” the old woman cried threateningly, her hand
tightening its grasp on her stick.
“Oh, will you try?—Only touch me! Only dare!” she repeated, with a
defiant scream.
“Ha! will she, who has waxed fat upon wrongs done to her neighbours,
venture now to beset and pester them—as hard to shake off as a bur?”
“Say, you, in what thing have I ever done you wrong?”
“That you will know, when your husband shall be condemned to jail!”
The Voyt’s wife rushed at her with lifted fists; but Hanka caught her
back, and said sternly to them both:
“Women, for God’s sake!—Would ye turn my cabin into a tavern?”
This instantly put a stop to their brawl. Both breathed hard and were
panting. Tears came streaming from under the bandages that covered
Dominikova’s eyes, but she was first to come back to her senses, and
say, sitting down with hands clasped and a deep sigh:
“God be merciful to me a sinner!”
The Voyt’s wife had rushed out in a fury; but, returning, she put her
head in at the window, crying out to Hanka:
“I tell you, drive that wanton from your house! And do so while there
yet is time, lest you rue it sorely! Let her not stay one hour more
beneath your roof, or that hell-born pest will make you go yourself! O
Hanka, defend yourself—and for that, be merciless, be without pity for
her. She is only lying in wait to entrap your Antek.... Don’t you see
what a hell she now prepares for you?” She leant further into the room
and, stretching her fist towards Yagna, shouted with the most intense
hatred:
“Yet a little, yet a little, you devil from hell! I shall not die in
peace, I shall not go to Holy Confession, until I have seen you driven
with cudgels out of Lipka!—Oh, get you away to the soldiers, you drab,
you swinish jade! Your place is with them!”
She was gone, and over the cabin there came a silence like that of the
grave. Dominikova shook with a dumb passion of weeping; Magda rocked her
little one; Hanka, plunged in torturing thought, looked into the fire;
and Yagna, though she still had on her face the same hardened reckless
expression, the same wicked smile, had turned as white as a sheet. Those
last words had cut deep into her soul; she felt stabbed as though by a
hundred knives, each stab streaming with her life-blood: an inhuman
torment that was impelling her to shriek out at the top of her voice, or
even dash her brains out against the wall. But she controlled herself,
pulled her mother by the sleeve, and said in an agonized whisper:
“Mother, come away. Let’s flee this place. And quickly!”
“Right; for I am broken and shattered. But you must return and watch
over what is yours.”
“I will not stay here! I so loathe the place that to stay is beyond
me.—Why did I ever darken these doors? Better have broken a limb than
have ever come here!”
“Were you, then, so evilly dealt with?” Hanka asked quietly.
“Worse than a chained-up dog! Even in hell there must be less pain than
I have suffered here!”
“Strange, then, that you could bear it so long: no one imprisoned you
here. You were free as air to go!”
“So I will. And may the plague choke you, for being—what you are!”
“Curse not, or I may cast my own wrongs in your teeth!”
“Why are ye all—as many as dwell in Lipka—all of you against me?”
“Live rightly: none will say one word of bitterness to you!”
“Peace, Yagna, peace; Hanka bears you no malice!”
“Let her too howl with the rest. Aye, let her! As dogs, dirt to me is
all their howling. And what have I done to them? Whom have I robbed or
slain?”
“What have ye done? Have you the front to ask?” Hanka exclaimed, in
stupefaction, standing up opposite her. “Do not drive me too far, or I
may speak!”
“Speak, prithee! I dare you to speak! What do I care for you?” Yagna
vociferated, now in a towering passion, that spread within her like a
conflagration; and she was ready to do anything—even the very worst that
offered.
The tears had instantly sprung to Hanka’s eyes at the remembrance of
Antek’s infidelity, that rose up before her with a pang so acute that
she could hardly stammer out:
“What have ye done with him—with my husband, say? Ye never would let him
be, but followed him everywhere, like the rampant piece of lust ye
are!”... Her breath failed her, and she broke into sobs.
Like a she-wolf set upon in her den, at bay, and ready to tear anything
she meets with to pieces, Yagna sprang up. Burning with the most furious
hate, and frenzied to the uttermost extreme of rage, she lashed her
adversary with stinging words, that came each of them from her lips like
the strokes of a whip.
“Indeed?—So ’twas I who pursued your man, was it? Yet there is none but
knows how I always drove him from me! How, like a cur, he would whine
outside my door, that he might have but the mere sight of a shoe of
mine!—Yes, and he took hold of me by force, till I was bereft of sense,
and let him do all his will, for my brains whirled.—And now will I tell
you all the truth ... but you will rue the telling! He loved me—loved me
more than tongue can tell! And you he shrank from, even to loathing; his
gorge, poor man! rose at the thought of your love; ’twas in his throat,
as rancid reasty fat, ancient and musty and unbearable; and at the
memory of you, he would spit with sheer disgust! Nay, not to see you any
more, he willingly would have done himself a harm.... You sought the
truth; you have it now!—And, moreover, I will tell you—and do not forget
it—if I should but say the word, when you would kiss his feet, he’d
spurn you from him, and go following me throughout the world!—So weigh
my words, and never dare to think yourself my equal.—Have you
understood?”
Towards the end, though loud and passionate in speech, she had become
mistress of herself, fearless, and more beautiful than ever. Even her
mother listened to her with astonishment, mingled with dread; for now
another woman stood revealed before her, as terrible, as evil, and as
dangerous as the dark cloud that bears the lightning within it.
Her words pierced Hanka, wounded her almost to death. They struck her
without mercy, crushed and trampled her down. She felt strengthless,
mindless, almost as unconscious as a tree that falls struck by the
thunderbolt. She was scarcely able to breathe; her lips grew very white,
and she sank back on a bench. Her anguish, it seemed to her, was rending
her to pieces—nay, crushing her to grains of barren sand: even the tears
had vanished from her face, grown ashy with the throes of that fierce
ordeal, though her bosom still was shaken with deep dry sobs. She stared
out into space as if in terror—into the abyss which had opened suddenly
before her eyes; and she trembled as trembles an ear of corn, that the
wind whirls on to destruction.
Yagna had long ago gone with her mother to the other side of the house;
Yuzka was with the ducklings at the mill-pond; but Hanka still sat
motionless in the same place, like a bird bereft of her fledgelings,
unable to scream out, to defend itself, to flee anywhither, only now and
then stirring its wings, and uttering a mournful cry.
But Heaven had pity on her and granted her a little relief. She came to
herself again, knelt down before the holy pictures, and with abundant
tears made a vow to go on pilgrimage to Chenstohova, if what she had
heard should prove untrue.
She was not even angry with Yagna any more; she only dreaded her; and,
hearing her voice now and then, crossed herself, as if to keep off a
fiend.
Then she set to work. Her experienced hands worked almost as deftly as
usual, little as her thoughts accompanied them; but she never remembered
that she took the children out of doors and set the cabin in order that
day.—At length, having prepared dinner and placed it in vessels for the
field-labourers, she sent it to them by Yuzka.
And now, being quite alone, and no longer agitated, she sat down to
reflect over every word said. Intelligent and kind-hearted though she
was, she could not put from her mind the blows dealt at her self-respect
as a wife; more than once their memory made her burn with indignation,
and her heart writhed under the torment it gave her; more than once the
thought of some awful revenge filled her mind. But at last she came to
this conclusion:
“Truly, as to good looks, there is no comparison between me and her. But
I am his wedded wife; I am the mother of his children”; and her
confidence returned at the thought.
“And should he even go astray after her, he will return again to me!—And
at any rate,” she added to comfort herself, looking out of the window,
“he can never marry her!”
Afternoon was melting into evening, when the thought of a step that must
be taken flashed suddenly across Hanka’s mind. She considered for a
minute or two, leaning against the wall; then, wiping her eyes, she
strode out into the passage, flung open the door of Yagna’s room, and
said, loud but calmly:
“Get out, out!—Out of this cabin instantly!”
Yagna, starting up from her settle, faced her for many seconds with a
steady look. Then Hanka, taking a step or two back from the threshold,
repeated in a hoarse voice:
“Take yourself away this instant, else will I have you thrown out by our
farm-servant!—This instant!” she said once more, with stern emphasis.
Here the old dame would have interfered, eager to bring forward
explanations and excuses; but Yagna merely shrugged her shoulders.
“Not a word to her—to that wretched wisp of straw! We know what she
would have.”
She took a paper out of the bottom of a chest.
“’Tis the donation you’d have back, and the six acres therewith: take
them, eat them, fill your belly with them!”
Flinging the paper in her face, she added scornfully:
“And choke yourself to death in the eating!”
Then, paying no heed to her mother’s remonstrances, she speedily set
about packing up all her things and carrying them outside.
Hanka felt dizzy, as if she had received a blow between the eyes; but
she picked up the paper, and said, threatening her:
“Quicker than that, or I will set the dogs on you!”
Meanwhile, she nevertheless felt overwhelmed with amazement. What! throw
away six whole acres of land as one might cast away a broken pot?—How
could she? The woman must be moonstruck, she thought, and eyed her over
with astonishment.
Yagna, paying no more attention to her, was now taking down her own
pictures, when Yuzka entered with a loud outcry.
“Give up the coral necklaces: they are mine from my
mother—mine—mine—mine!”
Yagna was just unfastening them, but stopped.
“No,” she answered, “I will not. Matthias gave them to me: mine they
are!”
Yuzka shrieked and stormed, until Hanka was forced to silence her. Then
all became calm again; Yagna seemed to have become deaf and dumb. After
having taken all her things out, she hurried away to get her brother’s
help.
Dominikova made no further opposition, but replied to no word either
from Hanka or from Yuzka. Only, when all her daughter’s things were on
the cart, she rose and shook her fist, and said:
“May the worst of all possible fates not pass you by!”
Hanka winced under the curse, but took it quietly, and called after her:
“When Vitek brings the cattle home, he’ll drive your cow to your hut.
And send someone for all the rest in the evening, to drive them home to
you.”
She gazed for a long time upon them as they departed in silence, wending
their way round the pond. She had no leisure for reflection, for the
hired labourers came in presently: so she stowed the deed away carefully
in her chest, under lock and key. But she was subdued and depressed the
whole evening, and it was with but small pleasure that she listened to
Yagustynka’s praises of what she had done.
Then, after the men had returned once more to their work, she took Yuzka
with her to weed the flax, which was in places quite yellow with wild
flowers. She worked with great diligence to shake off old Dominikova’s
menaces from her mind; but unsuccessfully; and she was especially uneasy
about what Antek would say on his return.
“How he will knit his brows when I show him the deed!—Oh, the fool!—Six
whole acres! ’tis all but a farm by itself.”
“Ah! Hanka,” Yuzka cried, “we have forgotten the letter about Gregory!”
“Aye, so we have.—Yuzka, leave off your work: I shall go to the priest
and ask him to read it.”
The priest, however, was not within doors, and when she saw him at a
distance among the field-workers, with his cassock taken off, she felt
afraid he might rebuke her publicly for her act. “For no doubt,” she
thought, “he must know about it by this time.” So she went to the
miller, who was just then trying how the sawmill worked, along with
Matthew.
“My wife told me just how ye have smoked out your stepmother. Ha, ha! Ye
look like a wagtail, but have the claws of a hawk!” Laughing, he set to
read the letter, but at the first glance at it, he cried out: “Oh, what
awful news!—Your Gregory has been drowned.—’Twas as far back as
Eastertide.... They write that ye can get his things by applying at the
District Office.”
“Gregory dead!—So strong a man!—And so young!—He was not over
twenty-six.—And was to have come back this harvest-time.—Drowned! O
merciful Jesus!” she moaned, wringing her hands at the mournful news.
“Well,” Matthew remarked, with bitter animosity, “heritages seem to be
coming your way. Ye have but now to turn Yuzka out upon the world, and
the whole estate will be yours and the blacksmith’s!”
“Are ye already off with the old love of Teresa, and on with Yagna’s new
love?” she interrupted him; and thereupon he was suddenly absorbed in
the machinery, while the miller burst into a loud guffaw.
“Oh, what a good tit for tat!—And what a brave little woman!”
On her way home, she dropped in to tell Magda, who wept copiously, and
uttered many an ejaculation of grief:
“’Tis the will of the Lord.... Ah! a man like an oak-tree.... Few his
equals in all Lipka!... Oh, lot of man, oh, unhappy lot!—Here to-day,
gone to-morrow!... Then his belongings go to his family: Michael will go
to the office to-morrow and fetch them.... Poor fellow! And he so eager
to be home again!”
“All is in God’s hands.... He was always unlucky with water. Remember
how once he was near drowning in the pond, and was saved by Klemba....
Surely it was written that he should die no other death!”
They mourned together, and wept—and parted; for they both, and Hanka
especially, had plenty of work to do.
The news spread about very fast. The men who came back from the fields
were already talking about Gregory and Yagna: all heartily sorry for the
one, but not all for the other: concerning her, opinions were divided.
The women (the older ones in particular) were very decidedly on Hanka’s
side, and violently hostile to Yagna; while the men, though
hesitatingly, inclined to take the other’s part. This even gave rise to
some disputes.
Matthew, on his way home from the sawmill, heard them talk. At first he
merely spat in token of contempt, or let out a curse under his breath;
but, hearing what they said outside Ploshka’s hut, he could not help
crying out indignantly:
“Hanka had no right to expel her: she has property there of her own.”
Here Ploshka’s wife, red-faced and stout of figure, turned upon him.
“Nay,” she cried, “’tis well known that Hanka does not deny her right to
the land. But she has other fears, for Antek may come home any day. Who
can watch a thief living in the house? Was she to sit still and take no
heed of their doings? Was she?”
“Fiddlesticks! all that has naught to do with the case. Your unbridled
tongues are wagging, not for the sake of Justice, but from envy and
spite!”
When you thrust a stick into a wasps’ nest, they all fly out at you: so
did the women at him.
“Oh, indeed! what is there in her to envy, say? That she’s a
light-o’-love and a wanton? That ye all run after her like dogs? That
you long for her, every one of you? That she is a cause of sin and a
shame to all the village? Shall we envy her those things?”
“Perchance ye do: ye are beyond man’s understanding. Worn-out old besoms
ye are, who would hate the very light of the sun! Had she but been like
that Magda, the tavern wench, and done the worst of things, you would
have forgiven her; but simply because she is the fairest of all, you’d
all like to drown her—aye, and in a spoonful of water too!”
This caused such a storm that he was glad to make his escape, crying as
he went:
“Ye foul jades, may your tongues rot in your heads!”
Passing by Dominikova’s house, he looked in at the open window. The room
was lit, but Yagna could not be seen, and he was unwilling to go in; so
he regretfully passed on to his own hut, on his way to which he was met
by Veronka.
“Ah, I was at your home just now.—Staho has dug the new foundations and
made the trunks ready, so that you might cut them into shape now: when
are ye coming?”
“On Tib’s eve perhaps. I am disgusted with this village, and may any day
throw everything up—and go over the hills and far away!” he cried
angrily, as he went past.
“Something,” she wondered, as she went her way to Boryna’s, “must have
stung the man pretty sharply: what can it be?”
Supper was done, and Hanka told her all at leisure. Yagna’s expulsion
interested her deeply; but on hearing of Gregory, she only observed:
“His death will make one the fewer to share the property.”
“It will.—I never thought of that.”
“And with what the Squire has to give for the forest, you will get hard
upon seventeen acres apiece!... To think of it! Even other folk’s death
is a gain to those already rich!” she sighed ruefully.
“What care I for wealth?” said Hanka. But when she went to bed, and
thought the matter over, she felt a secret joy in her heart.
And afterwards, kneeling down for her evening prayer, she said
resignedly:
“Since he has died, it is the will of our Lord.” And she prayed
fervently for his eternal rest.
The next day, about noon, Ambrose came to her cabin.
“Where have ye been?” she inquired.
“At the Koziols’. A child there has been scalded to death. She called me
in, but there is naught needed for it save a coffin and a few clods.”
“Which of them is it?”
“The younger of the two that she brought from Warsaw this spring. It
fell into a tub of boiling water, and was all but boiled.”
“Those foundlings, as it seems, do not get on with her.”
“They do not.—But she is no loser: the funeral expenses are paid.—I came
to you on another business, however.”
She looked at him uneasily.
“Dominikova, you must know, has gone to the law court with Yagna—to
complain of your having turned her out, I suppose.”
“Let her. I do not care.”
“They went to confession this morning, and had later a long conference
with the priest. I could not catch half they said against you, but what
they said made him shake his fist with anger!”
“A priest—to poke his nose into other folk’s business!” she blurted out.
All day long, however, the tidings stuck in her memory painfully; she
was full of fears and evil surmises, and quite at a loss what to do.
At nightfall, a cart stopped in front of her cabin. She ran out,
breathless and terrified; but it was only the Voyt, sitting there behind
his horses.
“You know about Gregory already,” he began. “’Tis a calamity; but
there’s nothing to be said.—Now I have also some good news for you.
To-day—or to-morrow at the latest—ye shall see Antek again.”
“Are ye not beguiling me?” she asked; the news was too good to believe.
“When the Voyt tells you so, ye may believe him. They informed me in the
Bureau.”
“Tis well he comes back; it was high time indeed,” she returned, coolly;
it seemed, with no joy at all. And then the Voyt, after a moment’s
reflection, began talking to her as a friend.
“That’s a bad business ye have made with Yagna! She has laid a complaint
against you, and may make you smart for having used violence and taken
the law into your own hands. Ye had no right to expel her from her own
apartment.—A pretty thing it will be, when Antek comes back, and ye are
thrown into jail for it, both of you!—Now take my sincere friendly
advice: make matters up. I’ll do all I can to get the complaint
withdrawn; but ye must yourself make amends for the injury done.”
Hanka stood erect before him, and told him her mind thus:
“Are you speaking as the defender of my victim, or of your mistress?”
His whip struck the horses so hard that they bounded away at a gallop.