XI
On the lighter soils, they were beginning to reap already; on the heavier, they were preparing all things for the harvest that was about to take place.
It was but a few days after Roch’s flight. Lipka was getting the wagons ready for use, cleaning out the barns and airing them with wide-open doors; in the shadow of the orchards, people were busily twisting bands of straw; and within doors the women were busy baking loaves and cooking food for the reapers. All this caused so much racket and turmoil that the village looked as though on the eve of some great festival.
Moreover, a great many people had come over from the neighbouring hamlets, and the roadways to and from the mill, in particular, were as crowded as on a fair-day. Most were taking their corn to be ground; and as if to thwart them, the water ran so low that only one of the falls would work, and even that very feebly. But everyone awaited his turn patiently, because all wanted the corn in their barns ground before harvest-home.
Many besides had come to the miller’s to get meal, or groats; some even loaves.
The man himself was ill in bed; but he still directed everything. He would cry out to his wife, sitting outside by the open window:
“Not a kopek’s worth on credit for the Rzepki folk! They have patronized the priest’s bull: let the priest help them now!”
He was inexorable to all prayers and entreaties: no one that had “patronized” the animal in question was lent even half a quart of flour.
“They prefer his bull to mine,” he shouted; “let them get flour out of him now!”
His wife, who was a poorly-looking querulous thing with a bandaged face, would shrug her shoulders; and, when possible, she made loans by stealth to many a one.
Klemba’s wife came to ask for half a quart of millet groats.
“Cash down! I’ll not sell her one grit on credit!”
This was very embarrassing to her; she had brought no money.
“Your Thomas is hand in glove with the priest: let him lend the groats ye want!”
At this, Klembova took offence, and answered defiantly:
“Aye, he holds with the priest, and still will hold; but never shall he set foot in here again!”
“ ‘Slight the plight, brief the grief!’ Go elsewhere for your meal!”
She withdrew, but in sore perplexity, for there was not a kopek in the house. However, meeting the smith’s wife, who sat by the closed forge, as she set to complain to her about the miller’s behaviour, the latter returned, with a smile on her face:
“His power, let me tell you, will not last long.”
“Alas! who can resist so rich a man?”
“When there’s a windmill close by, we shall be able.”
Wide-eyed with bewilderment, Klembova stared at her.
“My goodman,” she explained, “is building a windmill. He has just set out with Matthew to the forest for timber; it will be put up in Podlesie, close to the crucifix there.”
“Well!—Michael build a windmill! I never dreamed of such a thing. … Well, well!—But ’twill serve that extortioner right: he has waxed too fat.”
Her feelings much relieved, she was hastening home in good spirits, when, seeing Hanka outside her cabin at the washing-tub, she went to tell her that same unexpected bit of news.
Antek, working at a cart just by, overheard her, and said:
“Magda has told you the truth. The smith has purchased a score of acres in Podlesie, close to the crucifix. … The miller will go mad with rage! But he has treated us all so that none will pity him.”
“Any tidings of Roch?”
“None whatever,” he replied, turning away quickly.
“That, methinks, is strange. ’Tis the third day we have no news of him.”
“Ah, how often has he disappeared so, and yet come back again to us!”
“Is any one of you,” Hanka queried, “going to Chenstohova?”
“Yes: Eva and Matty.—A good few make the pilgrimage this year.”
“I too am going; the linen I am washing now is for the journey.”
“There will be many from the other villages too, I expect.”
“And a good season they have chosen—just when the work is hardest!” Antek grumbled; but he would not forbid Hanka, knowing well to what intention she was making this pilgrimage.
Yagustynka joined them.
“Know ye?” she cried; “John came home from the army about an hour ago!”
“Teresa’s goodman! And she was saying he would not be back till autumn!”
“I have just seen him; very well clad … and dying to be once more in his home!”
“A good fellow, but a very headstrong one. … Is Teresa at home?”
“No, at the priest’s, pulling up flax-plants. She has no idea of what’s coming.”
“There will be trouble again in Lipka. Of course they will tell him all, and at once.”
Antek was attentive and much interested, but said nothing. Both Hanka and Klembova were sincerely sorry for the woman, and feared the worst might come to pass. Yagustynka broke in on their talk, saying:
“A fig for the justice of it all! That man of hers leaves her for years and years all alone; and if aught happens to her, poor creature! he is ready to kill her! Where’s the justice of that? He may do as he pleases, play the goat as he likes: no one will breathe a word against him.—Things are outrageously ill-managed in the world!—Why, is a woman not a human being just as much as a man is? Is she a block of stone or wood? … If she must be punished, then let him who has sinned not a whit the less, be punished likewise. Wherefore is he to have it all enjoyment, while she bears all the punishment?”
“My dear,” Klembova observed, “from the beginning it has been so, and so it will be even to the end.”
“Yea, so it will be—to the people’s hurt, and to the delight of the Evil One; but I would fain have things ordered otherwise. Whoso took his neighbour’s wife should be forced to keep her always … and if not—a stick for his back, and to jail with the wretch!”
Antek was tickled by her zealous ardour; but she swooped down upon him like a fury.
“Ye find it a laughing matter, do you? For you it is! O poisonous villains, to whom every girl is your best-beloved—till she’s yours! … And after that, ye make a mock of her!”
“A magpie when rain’s at hand makes less din than you!” Antek retorted, somewhat out of temper.
She left them, only to return in the evening, weeping bitterly.
“What ill thing has befallen?” Hanka inquired in alarm.
“What ill thing? I have tasted of human sorrow, and the draught has made me faint.” She again burst into tears, and said, sobbing all the while: “Kozlova took John in hand and informed him of everything.”
“Ah, well, had it not been she, it would have been someone else: no doubt of that.”
“But I tell you, that cottage will see some fearful deed done! I went there once: no one was in. Just now, I looked in again. There they sat, both of them—weeping. On the table lay the presents he had brought for her—all open and unpacked. Lord! a shudder went through me; I felt as when one looks down into a grave. They are saying naught, only weep. Matthew’s mother told me all: it made my hair rise.”
“Do you know,” Antek asked, “whether he said anything about Matthew?”
“He cursed the man most horribly. No, no! he never will forgive him!”
“Do ye think Matthew will whine to him for pardon?” Antek answered in a surly tone, and hurried off to warn his friend at Nastka’s hut.
He found her brother deep in talk with her, took him a little down the road, and told him all.
Matthew took in his breath with a hissing gasp, and uttered an oath.
They returned to the village together, Matthew looking gloomy and downcast, and more than once heaving a sigh.
“I see,” Antek said, weighing each word, “that you are grievously troubled in mind.”
“For her?—Not I! She was sticking like a bone in my throat. No, ’tis something else that perplexes me.”
Antek felt surprised, but did not like to ask questions.
“To sorrow over each particular girl of mine the time would not suffice me. She came within my grasp; I took her: who would not have done so? But truly, mine was but the joy of a dog fallen down a well; she has wailed and lamented for ten women. I fled her; she came after me, just like my shadow. Let John now rejoice with her!—I no longer crave for love affairs, but something very different.”
“True, it were time for you to take a wife.”
“Nastka just now was saying so to me.”
“Our village girls are plentiful as poppies, and you have an ample choice.”
Matthew blurted out the thoughtless answer: “It was made long ago.”
“Then ask me to be your proposer, and have the wedding after harvest-home.”
Somehow the idea displeased him; he asked for more particulars about John, talked of Simon’s farm, and let out—inadvertently, it seemed—the information that, according to Andrew, Dominikova meant to bring an action against Antek for Yagna’s rights as old Boryna’s relict.
“But no one denies that Father made a settlement,” Antek said. “I’ll not give the land up, but will pay her its value to the full. The quarrelsome hag does this for sheer love of a lawsuit!”
“Did Yagna really give the title-deed back to Hanka?”
“Yes, but what of that? she took care not to annul it at the notary’s.”
This greatly relieved Matthew, who—now unable to conceal all he felt—dropped several words in Yagna’s praise.
The whole manoeuvre was soon plain to Antek, who only said with a mocking smile:
“Have you heard what they are saying about her now?”
“Oh, those old women are always her enemies!”
“It seems she is running after Yanek, the organist’s son. And most shamelessly,” he added for greater effect.
Matthew flared up, hot with anger.
“Did ye see that?”
“Nay, I am no spy on her: what is she to me? But those there are who daily see her go out to meet her Yanek … in the forest … or amongst the corn. …”
“A good beating for one or two of them would soon put an end to such tales!”
“Try, try; ye may perchance frighten them,” Antek responded deliberately, though horribly tortured with jealousy at the thought of Matthew possibly becoming her husband: it bit him with all the venom of a mad dog’s fangs.
To what the latter said, though his talk was not infrequently hostile and even offensive, he made no reply, lest he should reveal what he was suffering; but, when they parted, he could not help saying with a malicious smile:
“Whoso marries that woman will have plenty of … connections. …”
And they parted, not on very friendly terms.
When Matthew had gone a little way, his face grew brighter.
“She is keeping him off; that’s what makes him talk so!—Let her run after Yanek!—’Tis but a child; and she cares far more for the priest than for the man.”
His thoughts were so extremely lenient, because, having heard from Antek all about the title-deed and the settlement, he had made up his mind to marry Yagna. He slackened his pace to calculate how much he would want to pay off Andrew and Simon, and have the twenty acres all to himself.
“The old woman will be no treat, but she’ll not last forever.”
The recollection of Yagna’s pranks, indeed, disturbed him, but he said:
“What is over is over; and if she tries new tricks, I’ll soon make her give them up!”
Outside the hut, his mother was awaiting him.
“John is back!—He knows all.”
“Glad of it! I shall not have to lie.”
“Teresa has been in here more than once: talks of drowning herself.”
“Indeed, indeed … she might do so!”—The thought gave him so fearful a pang that he could not touch his supper, but sat listening for any sounds from John’s orchard, which was only separated from theirs by a pathway. His disquietude increasing, he pushed the dish away, and smoked cigarette after cigarette, striving in vain to overcome the fit of trembling that agitated him. He cursed himself and the whole race of women; he tried to jest at the silly business: all would not do. His terror grew more and more, tormenting him past all bearing. He had got up several times to go out and seek company—and yet there he was, remaining in the hut, and he knew not why!
Night had fallen, when he heard steps approaching, and then, coming in with a rush, Teresa had thrown her arms round his neck.
“O Matthew, save me, save me!—O God! how I have been waiting and looking out for you!”
He set her down by his side, but she clung to him like a little child; and with streaming tears she called upon him in the extremity of her despair.
“He has been told all! It never entered my mind that he would really return! … I was at work in the priest’s flax, when someone came and told me. … I had like to fall dead on the spot, and went home with death in my heart. … You were out. … I went to seek you, but could not find you in all Lipka. … I wandered about very long, but at last had to go in.—He was standing there, white as a sheet; he leaped at me with closed fists … and asked for the truth. The truth!”
Matthew, shaking in every limb, wiped the cold sweat from his face.
“So I told it him: of what use would a lie have been? … He seized hold of an ax, and I thought it was my last hour. … I cried out to him: ‘Kill me! You’ll make all right for both of us!’ And he did not even touch me—only flung me a look, sat down by the window, and wept. … And now, what am I to do, wretched one? whither shall I go? … Save me, you, else I leap into the well, or kill myself in some wise! … Save me!” she shrieked, falling on the ground at his feet.
“Poor woman … how can I … how can I?” he stammered, humbled in the dust; and she started up with a fierce cry of mad fury.
“Wherefore, then, did you take me? wherefore entice me? wherefore lead me on to sin?”
“Hush, hush! All the village will be here!”
Once more she fell on his breast, embraced and kissed him frenziedly, and exclaimed with all the might of her love and terror and despair:
“O my only one, my chosen one amid a thousand! Slay me, but repel me not!—Do you love me, say? do you love me?—Then comfort me this once, for the last time; gather me in your arms and leave me not to agony and ruin!—You are all I have in the whole wide world; yea, all! Let me but stay with you. … I’ll serve you as faithfully as any dog … aye, I’ll be your slave!”
Such were the words of passion she sobbed out, wrung from the bottom of her broken heart.
Matthew was as one held in a vice, and squirming and writhing to get free. Avoiding a straightforward answer, he strove to soothe her with kisses and caresses and words of affection, agreeing to all she said, and all the while looking around with impatience and dread; for he suspected that John was sitting on the stile just outside.
A moment later, the true state of things flashed suddenly on Teresa’s mind: she thrust him from her, with words that struck him like blows:
“Liar and cur! You have always lied to me, but never shall you deceive me any more! … You are afraid—afraid lest John beat you; and therefore you turn and twist now, like a trodden worm! And I trusted to him as to the best of men? O Lord, O Lord! And John, who has been so good to me! The presents he has brought—presents for me!—Never yet did I hear him speak an unkind word; and how have I repaid him? By giving my trust to a traitor, to a villain! … Go your ways to Yagna!” she shrieked, rushing towards him with clenched fists. “Go—and may the hangman wed you both!—A well-matched pair—a wanton and a thief!”
And with an awful shriek, she fell fainting to the ground.
Matthew stood beside her, at a loss what to do; his mother sat whimpering by the wall.—Then John strode in from the orchard to his wife, and spoke to her … words of tender sorrowing consolation.
“Come to my home, forlorn one, come! Fear me not; I shall do you no hurt! Oh, no! you have suffered enough as it is.—Come, my wife!”
He took her by the hand, and helped her over the stile; then, turning to Matthew, he thundered:
“But the wrong you have done her, never will I forgive—never while there’s life in me!—So help me God!”
Choked with shame, Matthew answered never a word. His soul was full of such bitterness, such grinding torments, that he flew to the tavern and drank all night long.
The event was at once known throughout the village, and all were full of admiration and respect for John’s conduct.
“There’s not another man in the world like him!” the women said, moved even to tears; but at the same time they blamed Teresa with the utmost severity; all except Yagustynka, who took her part with great zeal.
“Teresa is not in fault!” she cried, when hearing her spoken against in orchards and enclosures. “She was all but a child when John’s military service began. Alone and childless as yet, she wanted some loving friend about her. And Matthew, like a hound, caught up the trail; and he flattered and fondled her, and took her out to hear the band play … till the poor silly girl’s head was turned!”
One of them said with a sigh:
“Why is there no law to punish such deceivers?”
“He has some grey hairs already, yet runs after women as ever!”
“But how’s a wretched bachelor to live, unless he takes another’s property?” objected the young men, jeering.
“If she’s not to blame, no more is he,” said Staho Ploshka; “where there’s no giving, there’s no taking.” For which ribaldry he was well-nigh assaulted by the women.
But the matter was not discussed very long: the harvest was at hand, the weather magnificent. On the uplands, the rye was, as it were, asking to be reaped; the barley was not much behind, and they went daily to inspect it. Already reapers were being engaged by the richer peasants.
The organist opened the harvest with a dozen or so of hired women reapers; his wife and daughters too took a hand in the work, while he superintended them all most watchfully. Yanek came only after Mass to help, and did not enjoy the fun long; his mother sent him home as soon as the noonday heat set in, fearing lest the sun might give him a headache. Kozlova grumbled:
“He’s going to find shade at Yagna’s—that’s his game!”
At home, however, it was not only very hot, but very troublesome because of the pitiless attacks of the flies there: So he went out into the village, passing outside the Klembas’. There he caught the sound of moans, issuing from within the wide-open cabin door.
It was Agata, lying in the passage, close to the threshold; everybody else had gone a-reaping.
He carried her into the room, laid her on a bed, gave her to drink, and revived her, so that, after a time, she opened her eyes.
“ ’Tis the end coming, young master,” she said with a childlike smile.
He would have run for the priest, but she caught at his soutane to prevent him.
“Today the Blessed Virgin said to me: ‘Be ready for tomorrow, weary soul!’ So there is time still, young master!—Tomorrow!—Thanks, thanks, O most merciful Lord!” she faltered, and her voice trailed away into silence. A smile flickered on her lips; she clasped her hands and, looking far away, sank into a state of profound mental prayer. Yanek, now sure that her last hour was drawing near, went to fetch the Klembas.
It was only in the afternoon that he came back there again. She lay on her bed, completely conscious. Her open locker stood beside her on a bench, and her hands, now very cold, had taken out of it all the effects she had provided for the present occasion: a clean sheet to be placed under her body; fresh bed-linen; holy water and a sprinkler still in good condition; a long piece cut off from a death-taper; an image of Our Lady of Chenstohova, to be put in her hands after death; a new chemise, a beautifully striped skirt, a cap deeply frilled about the forehead, a kerchief to bind over it, and a pair of shoes that had never yet been worn. This complete funeral outfit, got together by begging during the course of her life, she had now spread around her, delighted with every article and praising its quality to those about her; she even peeped into a looking-glass, and whispered with great pleasure:
“How grand it will be! I look quite like a notable goodwife.”
She directed them to dress her in all that splendid clothing at early dawn on the morrow.
No one opposed or thwarted her: everyone went about to make her last hours as happy as could be.
Yanek sat beside her bed till dusk, reading prayers aloud, which she said after him, smiling faintly now and then.
When they sat down to supper, she asked for scrambled eggs; but she only took one or two mouthfuls, pushed the dish away, and then lay still all the evening, only calling old Klemba to her before she went to sleep.
“All is well,” she said anxiously; “I shall not trouble you long … not long!”
Next morning, clad as she had desired, she was laid on Dame Klemba’s bed, but with her own bedding. She saw that everything was properly arranged, and with her own trembling hands smoothed down her thin featherbed, poured out the holy water and placed the sprinkler in the basin; and then, all being ready, she asked for the priest.
He came, bringing our Lord, and, having prepared her for her last journey, desired Yanek to stay by her side till the end.
This he did, and sat saying his hours there. The Klembas too remained within doors, and Yagna soon came round and ensconced herself quietly in a corner. All were very still, and moved about like shadows, with eyes anxiously fixed upon Agata, who lay, rosary in hand, and still quite conscious, bidding farewell to all who came in. To some children that peeped in at the door and window, she distributed a few kopeks.
“That’s for you,” she whispered cheerfully; “but say a prayer for Agata.”
Thus she lay in state, “as behoved a goodwife,” on a bed, with holy pictures above her—and just as it had been the dream of her life to die! She was in a state of serene elation, of unspeakable happiness, and tears of joy were rolling down her cheeks. Her lips moved in faint but rapturous smiles as she gazed into the depths of heaven, on the vast expanse of fields, dotted with ringing and glittering scythes, and heaped with sheaves of rye, heavy and ripe—and into those farther abysses, visible only to her departing soul.
Now, as the day was just drawing to its close, and the red glow of sundown flooded all the room, a violent shudder came over her; she sat up, stretched out her arms, and cried in a loud changed voice:
“Now my time has come—it has come!”
And she sank back.
A loud and mournful sound of wailing burst forth; all knelt down beside the bed, and Yanek read the Prayers for the Dying. Klembova lit the death-taper; Agata, grasping it, said the prayers after Yanek; but her voice, feebler and feebler, died away; her eyes, wearied by life, grew dim like that closing summer day. The greyness of everlasting twilight spread over her face; she dropped the taper and died.
So passed away that poor beggar-woman—as if she had been the foremost dame in Lipka! Ambrose, who had come in that very instant, closed her eyes; Yanek said a fervent prayer for her soul, and the whole village flocked round her body, to pray—to lament—and to wonder, not without envy, at so blissful a death, so peaceful an end.
But Yanek, gazing on those lifeless eyes, and that face, furrowed by the claws of death, and in hue like frost-stiffened clay, felt so terribly panic-stricken that he took to flight and, running home, flung himself on his bed, pressed his head upon the pillow, and wept aloud.
Yagna had followed close on his heels. She was herself unnerved and broken down, but set herself to comfort him and wipe the tears from his eyes. He turned to her as to a mother, laid his aching head upon her bosom, threw his arms round her neck, and burst into a tempest of sobs:
“O my God!” he cried; “how awful, how horrible death is!”
And at that moment his mother came in, saw and was filled with rage at the sight.
“What’s this?” she hissed, rushing at them, and scarcely stopping halfway. “Look at her, this tender nurse of ours! Pity—is it not?—that Yanek needs no nurse now, and is old enough to blow his own nose!”
Yagna raised her eyes, brimming over with tears, and in great perturbation set to telling her about Agata’s death. Yanek also came forward, eager to explain the whole affair, and say how upset and overwhelmed he had been. But his mother had already been much nettled by the gossip she had heard, and cut him short.
“You’re a silly calf! Best say naught, lest an evil thing happen to you!”
Then, striding to the door, she threw it wide open, and vociferated:
“As to you, woman—out! … And never set foot here any more, else I set the dogs at you!”
“But what evil have I done?” Yagna stammered, beside herself with shame and mortification.
“Off with you this instant, or I’ll have the dogs loosed!—I do not mean to weep because of you, as Hanka and the Voytova have wept! You minx, you baggage! I’ll teach you—I’ll teach you to come lovemaking here—and ye shall remember the lesson!” she screamed at the top of her voice.
Yagna, bursting into tears, fled out of the room … and Yanek stood thunderstruck.