Yagustynka went to the Borynas’. She had gathered some wild
strawberries, and brought them for Yuzka. Hanka was then milking the
cows outside the hut: so she sat down under the eaves and told her of
all the presents Nastka had got.
“But,” she concluded, “they all do this to spite Dominikova.”
“And,” Hanka corrected, “to help Nastka also.—By the by, I too ought to
take her something or other.”
“If ye have aught that I can take now, I’ll do it willingly,” Yagustynka
told her. And then from inside the cabin was heard a faint voice of
entreaty—Yuzka’s.
“O Hanka, give her my young sow! I know I am going to die, and then
Nastka will say a prayer for my soul!”
The idea struck Hanka as good; she directly told Vitek to drive the
little sow over to Nastka’s, for she did not feel inclined to go
herself.
“Vitek,” Yuzka cried, “tell her the sow is from me. And she must come
quick to see me: I cannot move now.”
The poor girl was very plaintive and querulous. She had been in bed for
a week, sick of a fever, all her body covered with crusts and scales. At
first they had let her lie under the orchard trees, for she had begged
them very hard. But she had grown so much worse that Yagustynka had
forbidden this.
“You must lie in the dark,” she said; “the sunlight drives all the ill
humours inside.”
So, moaning and groaning and complaining feebly that no children nor any
friends of hers were allowed to come in, she lay alone in the darkened
room. And Yagustynka, now constituted her guardian, drove away any that
tried to come in, even taking a stick to them!
Having spoken thus with Hanka, she gave the strawberries to the sick
child, and prepared an ointment for her, made up of pure buckwheat meal,
mixed with much fresh unsalted butter, and many egg-yolks. With that,
she smeared Yuzka’s face and neck, laying it on very thick, and covering
all with wet cloths. The child submitted passively to the treatment,
only asking with some apprehension:
“Will not the sores leave pock-marks on my face?”
“Only do not scratch at them, and they will leave none.—As it was for
Nastka.”
“But they sting me so, O Lord!... Then pray bind my hands fast, else I
shall not be able to bear the pain!” And as she begged very earnestly,
and could scarce refrain from tearing at her cheeks, the old woman,
muttering an incantation over her, fumigated her with the smoke of dried
houseleek, bound her arms to her sides, and went off to work.
Yuzka lay still, listening to the hum of the flies—and another strange
buzzing, too, which ever and anon sounded within her head. She also, as
in a dream, now and then heard someone of the household coming in to
look at her and going away on tiptoe. And then she fancied there were
boughs, laden with rosy apples, that hung very low above her head, but
she was powerless to reach up and snatch them; and then a flock of sheep
came crowding around her, bleating pitifully ... but Vitek came into the
room, and she knew him at once.
“Have you taken to Nastka my little sow?—What did she say?”
“Why, she rejoiced over it so, she came near kissing its tail!”
“Ye naughty fellow! Making fun even of Nastka!”
“But I say true!—And she bade me tell you she will be here to-morrow.”
All at once, Yuzka began to toss to and fro, crying out in dismay:
“Drive them off!—They’ll trample me down!—Baa! Baa! Baa!”
Then of a sudden she collapsed, lying still as in sleep. Vitek went out,
but returned at frequent intervals. Once she asked him anxiously:
“Is it noon yet?”
“Nearer midnight: everybody is asleep.”
“True: ’tis dark.”
“Take those sparrows away: they are chirping like unfledged birds.”
He was just telling her something about their nests, when she screamed
and sat up.—“Where’s Grey One? Vitek, let it not stray, or Father will
thrash you!”
Then she told him to come near her, and talked to him in a whisper:
“Hanka forbade me to go to Nastka’s wedding; yet will I go in despite of
her ... dressed in a dark-blue corset ... and the skirt I wore for the
Indulgence.... Vitek! pluck me some apples; but only let Hanka not catch
you.” Then she was all at once still, as though plunged in swift sleep.
Vitek was for hours at her side, brushing flies away and giving her
water. Hanka had told him to stay at home, and watch over her, while
little Matthias, Klemba’s son, tended Boryna’s cattle along with his
father’s.
The want of the free forest air made itself felt sorely to the boy; but,
deeply affected as he was by Yuzka’s state, he would (as they say) have
pulled the sky down for her, and have done anything to interest her and
make her laugh.
One day, he brought her a whole covey of little partridges.
“Yuzka, stroke them! stroke them, and they will cry _pew-pew_ to you!”
“How can I?” she moaned, raising her head.
He undid her, and she took up the fluttering unfledged birds in those
poor feeble nerveless hands of hers, and pressed them to her face and
eyes.
“Ah, how their souls throb within them! How frightened they are, poor
things!”
“What? I myself caught them, and shall I let them go?” he protested,
unwilling to do so. Yet he did.
Another time, he brought her a leveret, that he placed on the down
coverlet over her, holding it up by the ears.
“Dear little leveret, sweet little leveret, taken away from your
mother!” she whispered, holding it close to her bosom, like an infant in
arms, and stroking and fondling it tenderly. But the animal screamed as
if tortured, and, escaping from her hands, jumped out into the passage
amongst a lot of fowls that took tumultuously to flight, rushed out of
the porch just in front of Lapa, that was dozing inside, and away into
the orchard. The dog was hot in pursuit instantly; Vitek followed,
shouting; and the noise and uproar were so great that Hanka came out of
the farm-yard: while Yuzka laughed almost to split her sides.
“And did the dog get it?” she asked, with anxiety.
“A likely thing!” he exclaimed. “No; he just saw its scut and no more,
when it vanished into the depths of the corn, as a stone disappears in
the water.—A splendid runner it is.—Do not be sad, Yuzka; I will get you
another.”
Whatever he could find, he brought to her: now a lot of gold-besprinkled
quails, now a hedgehog, now a tame squirrel that leapt about the room
the most funnily in the world; or a brood of young swallows, twittering
so very sorrowfully that the parent birds flew after them into the room,
and Yuzka ordered him to restore them to the nest; and many another
curious thing; besides apples and pears, as many as they both could
manage to eat without their elders’ knowing.—But everything at last
wearied her, and she turned away tired and caring no more for anything.
“All this is naught to me! bring me something new!” she would murmur,
turning even from the stork, as it strutted about the room, poking its
beak into every pot and pan, or placed itself in ambush for a sudden
thrust at Lapa in the doorway.—Once only, when he brought her a
rainbow-hued bee-eater, caught alive, did she enjoy the sight a little.
“What a magnificent bird! It looks as if painted!”
“Only take care lest it peck your nose: ’tis an ill bird to tackle.”
“But it does not even try to get away.—Is it tame?”
“No, but I have bound its wings and legs.”
The bird amused them for some time; but it pined away, sat motionless,
and, refusing to eat, died shortly, to the great sorrow of all in the
household.
So the days went by.
Outside, it was slowly getting hotter and hotter still: men could hardly
do anything in the fields by day; nor was the night anything but a
stifling time spent in a vast oven: even out of doors and in the
orchards, it was so. The drought was swiftly becoming a disaster. The
cattle came back to their sheds, lowing and hungry from the
pasture-lands. Potatoes were withering to the size of hazel-nuts; there
were fields wherein the stunted oats rose but a few inches above the
ground; the blades of barley were sere; and the rye, untimely dried up,
was white with grainless ears. In deep trouble, therefore, they would
look, each sunset, in desolate hope, for some indication of a coming
change in the weather. But not a cloud hung in the sky. Above them there
was only a glassy whitish glare; and the sun would go down unveiled by
the faintest shadow of vapour.
Many a one new wept fervently at the altar of our Lord’s
Transfiguration, before the holy images; but unavailingly. The fields
grew ever more parched, more scorched; the fruits fell unripe from the
trees; and so little water now went down the stream that both flour-mill
and sawmill stood closed, silent and dreary: while the people, reduced
to desperation, united, each man paying his quota for a grand votive
Mass, with exposition of the Holy Sacrament!
So heartily and so fervently did they put up their prayers that not even
a heart of stone could have remained untouched.
And indeed our Lord did have mercy on them. True, the next day was so
sultry, so perspiring, so fiercely glowing that birds fell fainting to
the earth, oxen lowed plaintively over the pasture-lands, horses would
not come out from their stables, and men, wearied and worn, crawled
about the dried-up orchards, unwilling to quit the shade. But it came to
pass that—at the very point of noon, when everything seemed about to
breathe its last in that white-hot fiery furnace—there came a sudden
mist, troubling the brightness of the sun and obscuring it, as if a
handful of ashes had been flung over its disk; and shortly there was
heard a sound as of the wings of many birds high in air, and livid
masses of clouds assembled from every quarter, more louring and more
full of grim menace every instant.
Now fear breathed in every bosom; and all were still and hushed, though
thrilled with apprehension.
Many thunders muttered with far-away voices; and then arose a gale, and
the dust got up in multitudinous whorls, close and compact; the sun shed
a sickly glare, of a sandy yellow hue. And then all rapidly grew dark,
and the heavens were filled with swarms of lightnings—as if someone were
cracking fiery whip-lashes in the sky. And with the falling of the first
thunderbolt the people came rushing out of their houses.
Immediately a great tumult sprang up. The sun was now quite invisible,
in the wild confusion of an indescribable whirlwind, in which, amid
entangled masses of pitchy darkness, there poured forth shaft after
shaft of dazzling splendour; thunder, rolling and roaring, came with the
flashes of lightning; then, the rattling downpour, and the howling of
the blasts in the trees.
Thunderbolt followed thunderbolt with blinding brilliancy; the rain fell
in such sheets that all was hid from sight; flaws of hail went passing
here and there.
This lasted for about an hour. The corn was lodged, the roads had turned
to frothy turbid streams by now. Then it slackened a little, and
brightened up; but once more the thunder rattled like ten score carts
trundling over hard-frozen ground—and the rain again poured down, like
water from a tub.
People peered out of their huts in alarm. In some cabins, consecrated
lamps were lit, and the hymn, “We fly to thy protection, holy Mother,”
was sung; while the holy images had been brought out of others, as a
safe-guard against the powers of evil abroad. And, thank God! the storm
passed away, without doing very much harm. Only, when it was nearly
over, and the drops of rain began to fall less frequently, there came,
from a lonely cloud which hung quite at the end of the village, a bolt
of fire that fell on the Voyt’s granary!
At once, flames and smoke burst forth from the building, and people ran
to the place in dismay. There was no hope of saving it, from the very
beginning, and the fire devoured it as it would have done a heap of dry
splinters of wood; but Antek and Matthew, together with the rest, worked
away with frantic energy to save Koziol’s hut and the adjacent
buildings. Happily the roads were streaming with rain-water; for several
thatches had begun to smoke, and from the doomed granary sparks flew
abroad thick and fast.
The Voyt was from home: since morning he had been in town on official
business. But his wife was there, desperate over her loss, grieving and
running about in every direction like a scared hen. And when the danger
had passed, and the people were going home, who should approach her but
Kozlova, with arms akimbo, and mouth full of loud fierce gibes!
“See ye? The Lord has punished ye for the wrong ye did me, Madam Voyt!
Aye, that He has!”
There would have been a fight, for the other rushed at her, with claws
stretched forth; but Antek succeeded (not without difficulty, though) in
parting them. Then he abused Kozlova in such strong terms that she, like
a well-thrashed dog, went back to her hut growling and snarling:
“Yes, Madam Voyt! puff yourself up, do! I shall get my own back, and
with good interest!”
Now by this time the storm had rolled away to the woodlands, and the sun
had come out again. A flock of white clouds moved athwart the blue sky;
the air was cool and fresh, and the birds sang; while the people went
forth to mend the damage done, and open the sluices.
Unexpectedly, and almost close to his cabin, Antek had met Yagna,
carrying a hoe and a basket. He greeted her cordially; she glared at him
like a wolf, and passed on in silence.
“So haughty as that?” he grumbled angrily; and then, seeing Yuzka in the
enclosure, rated her soundly for being out in the damp.
She was indeed so much better by now that they had permitted her to lie
in the orchard all day long. Her sores were healing beautifully, and
leaving no scars, and it was only in secret that Yagustynka continued to
anoint her as before, Hanka grudging so great a consumption of butter
and eggs.
So she lay, getting well slowly, almost all day long by herself, Vitek
now tending the cows again. Only now and then did a girl look in for a
while, or Roch sit with her for a little; or old Agata would come to
say, as usual, that she was going beyond doubt to die in harvest-time,
in Klemba’s cabin, and as a peasant dame should die. But her most
frequent companion was Lapa, that always watched by her side, the stork,
that would come at her call, and the birds which flew down to her for
crumbs.
One day, when no one was in the hut, Yagna came to her with a handful of
caramels; but before Yuzka had time to thank her, she had taken to
flight on hearing Hanka’s voice somewhere, crying over the hedge:
“May they do ye good!”—She had vanished.
She then ran over to her brother’s, carrying something for him.
She found Nastka beside a cow that was drinking water out of a tub.
Simon was building an outhouse close by, and whistling with all his
might.
“What!” she exclaimed, very much surprised; “have you got a cow so
soon?”
“We have: is she not a beauty?” returned Nastka, very proud of her.
“Really, a very fine one: she must be of Manor stock. Where did ye buy
her?”
“Though we have not bought her, yet she is ours! I’ll tell you all—but
you’ll never believe me.—Yesterday at dawn, I was aware of something
that rubbed against the cabin wall, and thought it might be some hog
driven out to the pasture-lands, that was cleaning its sides from caked
mire. So I lay down anew, but was not yet asleep, when I heard a faint
sound of lowing. I went out; and behold, there stood by the door a cow,
tethered, with a bundle of clover in front of her, her udders full, and
her face turned up to me. I rubbed mine eyes, thinking this to be some
dream of the night. But no: ’twas a live cow, lowing and licking my
fingers. Then I felt sure she had strayed from some herd; and Simon too
said they would be coming for her in a trice. Only there was one
thing:—she was tied up. Could a cow tie herself up in any wise?—But noon
came, and no one to take her away, and the milk was oozing from her
udders by then: so I eased the poor beast. I asked through the village;
no one knew anything of a cow lost. Old Klemba said it might well be
some thieves’ trick, and I had better take her to the _gendarmie_. I was
sorry, but what else was I to do?—Then, when noon came next day, Roch
came too, and said:
“‘You are honest and you are needy; therefore hath the Lord Jesus
blessed you with a cow!’
“‘A cow falling from the sky! Not even an idiot can believe that.’
“Roch laughed, and, preparing to depart, said:
“‘The cow’s your own: have no fear! None shall take her from you.’
“Then I thought she was his gift, and fell at his knees to thank him;
but he shrank back.
“‘And if you should meet Mr. Yacek,’ he continued with a smile, ‘beware
of thanking him: he’s a man to lay about him with a stick, for he loves
not to be thanked.’”
“Then ’twas Mr. Yacek who gave you the cow!”
“Is there another man in the world so kind to poor folk?”
“True, it was he gave Staho the timber for his hut, and helped him in so
many other ways.”
“A holy man he is, no doubt, and daily I will pray for him.”
“But take heed lest any should steal her from you!”
“What, steal my cow? I would go over all the world to seek her, and tear
the thief’s eyes out! Our Lord would never permit such a wrong!—While
Simon is building the shed, I’ll have her in to sleep with us every
night. And Yasyek’s dog, Kruchek, will take care of her.—O my dear one,
O my darling!” she cried, taking her round the neck and kissing her pink
muzzle; while the animal uttered a faint gurgling sound, the dog barked
with joy, the fowls cackled for fear, and Simon whistled louder than
all.
“Beyond all doubt, then, ye are blessed of the Lord,” Yagna said,
looking intently at them both, with a sigh of something like
compunction. They both seemed changed beyond recognition; Simon
especially. He had always passed for an incapable fellow, who bore the
blame of all that went wrong; and anyone that cared to wipe his feet on
him could do so.—And now! Able in speech, wise in his acts, and
dignified in his bearing, he was really not the same man!...
After a long silence: “Which are your fields?” she inquired.
Nastka pointed them out to her, telling her what they were going to sow,
and where.
“But whence is the seed to come?”
“Simon says we shall get it; and so we shall. Because he speaks no idle
words.”
“He’s my own brother; but what ye say seems told of someone else!”
“So good, so clever, so hard-working!... There’s none like him, none!”
Nastka declared most emphatically.
“Surely,” Yagna mournfully assented.—“And whose are those fields with
the mounds marking their boundaries?”
“Antek Boryna’s. Not worked at present, though, for they await the
division of the farm.”
“There will be a goodly bit of land for them, and a most comfortable
holding.”
“Oh, may our Lord, for their kindness to us, render them back tenfold!
Antek stood surety with the Squire for our payment of the instalments,
and has helped us in many another way.”
“Antek!... Surety for payment!” She was astounded.
“And Hanka is not less kind: she has given me a young sow. ’Tis only a
sucking-pig now, but of good stock, and will grow up to be of great use
to us.”
“Indeed, you tell me of a marvellous thing. Hanka give you a
sucking-pig? ’Tis simply incredible.”
They returned to the hut, where Yagna, having taken a ten-rouble note
out of her kerchief, handed it to Nastka.
“Here’s a trifle.... I could not bring it before ... the Jew had not yet
paid me for my geese.”
They thanked her very warmly, and Yagna said, on leaving:
“Wait a little; Mother will relent, and let you have some of the
property.”
“I do not want it! Let her take the injury she has done me down to her
grave with her!” Simon burst out, so suddenly and with such vehemence
that she left without one word more, and went home, moody, depressed,
and not a little out of sorts.
“What am I? A dry stick that no one cares for,” she sighed forlornly, as
she went.
About half-way home, she met Matthew. He was going to his sister, but
went back with her and listened attentively to what she said of Simon.
“Not all men are so well off,” he remarked gloomily.
They talked on, but he did not feel at his ease. He was longing to say
something to her, but embarrassed how to say it; Yagna was meanwhile
looking down at Lipka, bathed in the sundown glow.
Then he said: “In this narrow little world, I feel stifled to death!” He
was almost speaking to himself.
She turned to him with a questioning look.
“What ails you? Your face is as wry as if you had been drinking
vinegar!”
On that, he told her how he loathed his life and the country and all
things, and was determined to go away and wander forth into the world.
“Why, if you will have a change, then marry!” she said, laughing.
“Aye, if she of whom I think would but have me!” he cried, staring
eagerly into her eyes; but she, confused and unpleasantly impressed,
looked aside.
“Ask her! Anyone would be glad to marry you: more than one already
expects your messengers.”
“And what if she should refuse me?—The shame—the pain of it!”
“In that case, you’d send your men with vodka to someone else.”
“I am not that sort. I would only have one, and cannot turn to another.”
“Oh, a young man has much the same liking for every girl, and would fain
come to close quarters with them all.”
This he did not deny; but presently, changing his mode of attack:
“Yagna, you know that the boys only wait for your mourning-time to end;
men will at once be sent to you with vodka.”
“Let them drink it themselves! I’ll marry no one of them!” she declared,
with so much energy as to made him think deeply. She spoke her mind: she
cared for none of them; only for Yanek—her Yanek!
The thought of him made her sigh, and she gave herself up to it with
delight, while Matthew, baffled, went back to his sister.
And Yagna looked into vacancy with wandering eyes of unrest, saying to
herself:
“What—what is he doing at this moment?”
On a sudden, someone had seized and was hugging her close in his arms.
She struggled violently.
“Will you not console me for my loss?” the Voyt whispered passionately.
Raging, she tore herself from his clutch.
“Touch me but once more, I’ll tear your eyes out and call the whole
village here to you!”
“Hush, Yagna, hush! See, I bring you a present!” and he pressed into her
hand a necklace of coral.
“Put it...!” Her exasperation may be some excuse for what she said. “All
your gifts are mere rubbish to me!”
“But, Yagna, what—what means this?” he stammered, stupefied.
“It means this much: ye are a hog! And are never to speak to me any
more!”
She broke away from him in a towering passion, and rushed home.
Her mother was peeling potatoes; Andrew was milking the cows, out of
doors. She set herself busily to perform her evening duties, though
still trembling all over with anger and unable to calm herself; and as
soon as the twilight had gathered, she went out to roam again, saying to
her mother:
“I am going to look in at the organist’s.”
Soon she beheld the windows of Yanek’s room, shining bright in the
darkness; there Michael was writing under the suspended lamp, while the
organist and his dame sat outside the house, taking the cool of the
evening.
They greeted her with the news: “Yanek is to be here to-morrow
afternoon!”
The bliss of it nearly made her fall senseless at their feet. Her knees
bent under her; her heart beat so fast that she could scarcely breathe.
Having sat with them a few minutes for courtesy’s sake, she fled away
along the poplar road and towards the wood, swift as a hunted beast....
“Lord! Lord!” she burst out in strange thanksgiving: she stretched forth
her arms, tears gushed from her eyes, and a marvellous feeling of
gladness came over her, so intense that it gave her a longing to laugh,
to scream out, to run like mad, and kiss the trees around her and the
fields beneath, that lay silvery in the moonlight!
“Yanek is coming—is coming—is coming!” she crooned to herself, darting
forward suddenly with the rapidity of a bird, and running on, impelled
by her desires and her anticipations, as if towards the achievement of
her destiny, and towards ineffable delight.
When she got home, it was late. All the village was dark except Boryna’s
hut, where many people had assembled to debate; and as she went, she
thought only of the morrow and of Yanek’s return.
Back in the hut, she could not fall asleep. As soon as she heard her
mother’s rasping stertorous breath, she ceased from tossing on her
pillow, and went to sit out of doors and await there either slumber or
daybreak.
She could now and again catch the sound of voices at Boryna’s, across
the water, and, one side of his hut being lighted, she perceived the
tremulous reflection of the light in the pond opposite her.
Her eyes fixed on this, she forgot about all things ... lost in a
multitude of dreary thoughts that wrapped her about like gossamer
tissues, and carried her away with them into the universe of unsatiable
yearnings!
The moon was down, the country-side of a murky brown tint. Many stars
shone on high; and from time to time one of them would fall with such
swiftness and from so enormous a height as to thrill every limb of her
with dread. Sometimes a faint breeze swept gently by, like the touch of
tender hands: and then the pleasant waft, warm and odorous, coming up
from the fields, made her stretch and stiffen her body in the voluptuous
enjoyment of that fragrance.
Absorbed, entranced in this reverie, of which no words can tell the
sweetness, she remained immobile, like a swelling shoot of some young
plant, gathering within itself hoards of sap and vegetable life.... And
the night passed on, silent and careful, as it were, not to disturb
human nature in its rapturous bliss.
Within Antek’s cabin, the men that held with him and Gregory were
talking of the assembly that was to take place next day at the District
Office, and to which the Voyt had convened all the farmers of Lipka.
There were about a score of peasants there—the whole party of Antek and
Gregory—lighted only by one small candle that glimmered on the penthouse
of the chimney.
Roch, who sat in the shadow, was explaining at length the results of
opening the school in Lipka as proposed; and Gregory was telling each
man in particular how to vote and what to say to the head of the
District.
They laid their heads together for a long time, with many objections and
some opposition; but in the end they agreed entirely, and then separated
before dawn, for they would have to rise pretty early in the morning.
So Yagna remained alone awake outside the cottage, still plunged in the
night of her reverie, still breathing these words, like an invocation of
love:
“He will come—he will be here!”
And she turned instinctively, bowing towards the eastern sky—as if
desirous to know what the coming day would bring, that now peeped grey
over the horizon—and she abandoned herself, with a sense of dread and
yet of exultation, to that which was to be.