III
When daybreak began to shed its light on the cabin-roofs, and dispel the night, and make the stars to fade, things were already moving about Boryna’s hut.
Kuba had left the stable. There was hoarfrost on the ground, and it was yet grey dawn; but the East flaunted a tinge of burning red, and the frosty treetops likewise. He stretched himself with satisfaction, yawned more than once, and went to the byre to call Vitek; for it was time to rise. But the lad only lifted his drowsy head, and whispering: “Presently, Kuba, presently,” laid it down again.
“Well, sleep a little more, poor fellow! sleep yet a little more!” Kuba covered him with a sheepskin coat, and limped away; for he had once received a bullet in the knee, which lamed him for life. He washed at the well, ran his fingers through his scanty hair, that had got matted during the night, and, kneeling down on the stable threshold, proceeded to say his prayers.
The master was still in bed, when the cabin-windows took a purple tint in the ruddy glow of morning. Kuba’s rosary glided through his fingers; he prayed for a long time, his eyes wandering nevertheless over the yard, the windows, the orchard with the hoarfrost still not melted on the trunks, and the apple-trees, laden with fruit as large as his fist. Then he threw something at the white head of Lapa, the dog which slept in the kennel close by; but Lapa only growled, curled up, and slept on.
“What, you rascal! would ye sleep till sunrise?” he cried, and threw missile after missile, till the dog came out, with a stretch and a yawn and a wag of its tail, and, approaching him, proceeded to scratch itself and cleanse its shaggy coat with its teeth.
“And unto Thee, and also unto all Thy Saints, do I, O Lord, offer up this my prayer. Amen.”
He beat his breast many times, rose from his knees, and called out to Lapa:
“O you dainty dog you, hunting for fleas like a lass going to a wedding!”
Being an industrious fellow, he now set to work, taking the cart out of the shed and greasing the wheels, giving the horses a drink, and filling the racks with hay till they snorted with pleasure and pawed the stable floor. Then he brought from the granary some refuse of corn plentifully seasoned with good oats, which he took to the mare’s manger: for she had been given a stall apart.
“Eat, old girl, eat away; you are to have a foal, and you need strength. Eat away!” He stroked her over the nose; and the mare laid her head on his shoulder, and playfully pulled at his shock of hair with her lips.
“Till noon, we shall be bringing in potatoes, and then we shall go to get litter in the evening. Never fear; a cart of litter is no great weight; don’t worry.”
“But you! for you there’s a good flogging in store, you lazy brute!” he said to the gelding that stood close by and was pushing its head forward between the boards that separated it from the mare’s manger.
“You hireling, you Jew! Willing enough to devour good oats, you are; but to move one step, save for the whip—not you!”
He passed it by, and looked into the manger that stood next to the wall, from which the filly’s head—chestnut-coloured, with a white arrow on the forehead—had for some time been watching him; and she uttered a gentle neigh.
“Easy, little one, easy! And eat your fill; you will take master to town. …” But her flank was soiled, and he wiped it clean with a wisp of hay. Such a full-grown filly, ready for coupling … and yet so dirty! Always wallowing in the mire like a sow!
So he went on, talking continually, and passed round to the sties, to let out the pigs that were squealing for food. Lapa followed him, looking wistfully into his face.
“Want something, eh? Here you are then—a nice bit of bread for you!” He took a piece of bread from his bosom and tossed it into the air. Lapa caught it, and ran away to his kennel, for the pigs would have taken it from him.
“Ha! those swine, they are like some men: all for grabbing what’s not theirs.”
In the barn he took a long look at the quartered cow that hung from the beams.
“A beast without understanding. Gone in her turn. She will be in the pots by tomorrow. Poor thing! you end by making a Sunday dinner for us.”
With a sigh of longing for the feast in store, he went to rouse Vitek. “ ’Twill be sunrise directly. Come, drive the cows to grass.”
Vitek had no mind; he wrapped his sheepskin round him and grunted; but in the end he got up, and shambled drowsily about the yard.
The master had overslept himself; for the sun was up, making the hoarfrost a dust of rubies, and each pane and pool a mirror of fire, and no one had as yet appeared from the cabin.
Vitek sat on the cow-byre threshold, scratching himself and yawning audibly. The sparrows had come down from the roofs to the well, and were now bathing in the troughs. He took a ladder, and went to look at the swallows’ nests under the eaves; for it was very still there, and he feared they might have died of cold. Several swallows lay there, benumbed. Taking them out very gently, he placed them within his shirt-bosom.
“See, Kuba, see! they are dead!” And he showed him the bodies, stiff and stark. Kuba took them one by one, laid them to his ear, breathed on their eyes, and gave his opinion.
“They are only numb with last night’s cold. Silly things, not to have left for some warm country yet! Ah, well!” And he went about his work again.
Vitek seated himself in front of the cabin, where the sunbeams poured down upon the whitewashed walls, and flies were already crawling. He took out such swallows as the heat of his body had revived a little; he breathed on them, opened their bills, gave them to drink from his own warm lips, until at length they were restored, opened their eyes, and fluttered to get free. Then, swiftly catching a fly on the wall, he would feed it to a bird and let it go.
“Away to your mother, fly away!” he said, as the young swallows sat on the rafters of the byre, preening themselves and twittering their thanks, as it were.
Lapa, sitting on his hind quarters, looked on with keen interest, whining now and then, running a few paces after each bird to catch it as it fluttered off, and then returning to watch proceedings.
“You might as well try to catch the wind,” said Vitek, so absorbed in reviving the swallows, that he took no note of Boryna coming round the hut, until the latter stood in front of him.
“Ha! you filthy knave! Playing with birds, are you?”
The lad jumped up to run for it; but the farmer caught him fast by the coat-collar, while with his other hand he undid the broad thong of tough leather which formed his girdle.
“Oh, but don’t beat me, don’t beat me, pray!” was all the poor fellow could utter.
“What sort of a cowherd are you, hey?—That’s how you tend cattle, hey?—Lost my best cow for me, hey?—You foundling, you!—You Warsaw mooncalf!” And he laid on furiously, wherever he could get a blow home; and the thong whistled in the air, and the lad writhed like an eel and roared for mercy.
“Don’t! O Lord! He’s killing me! Master! O Jesus, mercy!”
Hanka peered out to see what the matter was; Kuba spat with disgust and withdrew into the stable.
Boryna continued flogging him with might and main, scoring his loss upon the lad’s flesh with a vengeance, while Vitek shrieked and yelled at the top of his voice. At last the poor wretch managed to wriggle out of his master’s clutch, and holding his posteriors with both hands, ran to the fence, roaring as he ran: “He has killed me! My God! he has killed me!” while the swallows that were still in his bosom, fell out and were scattered along the road.
Boryna, still breathing threats against him, returned to the cottage and looked into Antek’s quarters.
“What!” he cried out on seeing him. “Still abed, and the sun up so long?”
“I had to rest. Was tired to death yesterday.”
“I am going to the law court. You will bring home the potatoes; and when that work is done, send our people to get litter. You might yourself drive in laths to make the hut a winter coating.”
“Do that yourself; there is no wind on our side.”
“As you please. I will do my side; and you, Mr. Sluggard, shall freeze.”
He slammed the door, and entered his own quarters. The fire was lit and Yuzka was going to milk the cows.
“Give me breakfast instantly: I must be off.”
“I can’t be in two places, nor do two things at once.”
And she went out.
“Not one quiet minute! I am forced to curse and fall foul of everybody,” he said to himself, and proceeded to dress in a very vile humour. What everlasting rows with his son, so that at every word each was ready to fly at the other—or worse—to say something that stabbed you like a knife! His ill humour, as he pondered, increased so, that he could not help cursing under his breath, and flinging his boots here and there about the floor.
“They ought to obey me, and they don’t. For what reason?” he asked himself.
“Because, no doubt, a cudgel, and a good one, is needed to deal with them. I ought long since to have used one. But I did not care to raise a scandal in the village, and could not make up my mind to do that. For I am not a beggarly ploughman; thirty acres are mine. Nor am I of a mean family; Boryna is a well-known name.—But kindness is thrown away upon them!” And then he remembered his son-in-law, the blacksmith, who was setting everyone against him, and continually pressing for a gift of six acres of cornland and one of forest, “willing,” he said, “to wait for the rest.”
“That is, till I am dead! Oh, yes,” he thought bitterly, “you will have to wait, fellow! While I live, you’ll not have so much as a smell at my land! You’re too clever by half!”
When Yuzka came in from milking, the potatoes were on the boil, and breakfast was soon ready.
“Yuzka, you will sell the meat yourself! Tomorrow is Sunday, and people know that we have it, so they will be coming. But no credit, mind! Keep the hind quarters for our own eating. You will call in Ambrose to salt and pickle them.”
“But the blacksmith too can do that.”
“He’ll take his share—the wolf’s share of the sheep!”
“But Magda will be hurt. ’Tis our cow; is she to have nothing?”
“Then cut off a piece and send it to Magda: but don’t call in the blacksmith.”
“Father dear, that’s kind of you!”
“All right, little one. Take good care of things here, and I’ll bring you a roll or something from town.”
He made a pretty good meal, girt himself up, smoothed down his scanty dishevelled hair, took his whip, and looked round the room.
“Is there anything I have forgotten?”
He would have looked into the alcove too, but Yuzka’s eye was upon him: so he merely crossed himself, and went out.
Sitting in the cart, with the reins in his hand, he gave one more order to Yuzka, who stood in the porch.
“When they have done digging the potatoes, send them off to rake up the litter: you’ll find the permit stuck behind the picture. … And tell them to cut down some young fir or hornbeam: it will come in handy.”
The cart had got as far as the fence, when Vitek showed himself among the apple-trees.
“I had forgotten. … Vitek! Prrru, prrru! Vitek, I say! you will take the kine to the meadow. … And tend them well, or you’ll get such a flogging as you won’t forget.”
“Oh, you may kiss—” the lad cried audaciously, and vanished on the other side of the barn.
“None of your impudence! If I get down, you’ll see!”
He turned to the right into the road by the church. The sun was by now above the cottages, with ever stronger and stronger rays. From the thatches mists rose up, and waterdrops dripped down; but in the shadows of the hedges and ditches, the frost lay white. On the pond, the thin film of morning haze had grown thinner; the waters bubbled and shone in the sunlight.
In the village the round of daily toil was commencing. Folks were livelier and more spirited than usual in this bright cool morning air: some going forth in troops to dig in the fields, carrying hoes and mattocks, and baskets with provisions; some setting out to plough the stubbled fields; some with harrows in carts, and bags full of seed-corn; whilst others wended their way to the wood for litter, and bore rakes on their shoulders. And on either side of the pond the noise increased, when presently the roads became crowded with cattle driven to grass; dogs barked, men shouted, and a heavy dust which the night’s dew had but partly laid, rose in the highway.
Boryna carefully threaded his way among the cattle, from time to time cracking his whip at some lamb or calf that would blunder across the filly’s path; and at last he got clear of them all, and approached the church, which was screened by a great rampart of limes and plane-trees, with dull yellow foliage. Thence he passed on to a broader road, planted on either side with giant poplars.
The bell had been rung to announce that mass was beginning, and the muffled notes of the organ came from within; he doffed his hat and breathed a devout prayer.
The way was solitary, and strewn with fallen leaves, which covered, as with a carpet of dead gold, all its deep holes and ruts, and the gnarled roots about its surface: a carpet striped by the falling shadows of the poplars, as the sun shone across the way.
“Gee-up! my little one, gee-up!” He cracked his whip, for the road sloped upwards, though slightly, towards the forest, black in the distance.
The silence made Boryna drowsy; he gazed through the colonnade of poplars upon the fields bathed in the rosy radiance, and tried to think of Eva’s accusation and of Red-and-White’s death; but he could not help feeling slumber coming on. Birds were chirruping in the boughs; through the treetops murmured the wind, here and there bringing down a leaflet, like a golden butterfly, that settled with a whirl on the road, or on some dusty clump of thistles, whose fiery eyes opened bravely to the sun. And the poplars talked one with another, and murmured softly with swaying boughs, and then were still.
It was only when he had reached the forest, and the horse stopped, that he woke up completely.
“The corn is coming up nicely here,” he mused, gazing sunwards at the grey fields, with their rust-coloured haze of sprouting rye.
“A good bit of land, and next to mine—just as if it had been put there on purpose!—This rye, I think, was not sown long ago.” He cast a longing glance at the recently harrowed lands, and then, uttering a sigh, entered the forest.
Here, however, a cold bleak wind, driving in his face, quite dispelled his reverie.
The forest was very old and very great. It stood, compact and thick, in the majesty of age and strength combined. Nearly all the trees were pines; but not unfrequently an ancient spreading oak would appear, or some birches, in their smocks of white bark, let their tangled yellow foliage float in the air. The lower growths—the hazelnut, the dwarf hornbeam, and the trembling aspen—were crowded around the mighty red pine-trunks, so closely and with branches so intertwined, that the sunbeams could but seldom touch the ground, where they seemed to be crawling, like bright-hued insects, over the mosses and reddish faded ferns.
“All this is mine. Four acres,” he reflected, devouring the wood with his eyes, and gloating over the best bits of timber.
“Ah! the Lord will not let us be wronged! Nor will we let people wrong us, either! The manor folk think what we have is too much: we think it too little.—Let me see: my four, and Yagna’s one; four and one’s. … Gee-up! foolish beast! Afraid of magpies?” He whipped her up smartly; for, upon the dry Tree, where the crucified Christ was hanging, magpies were quarrelling so violently that the filly had pricked up her ears and stopped short.
“ ‘Magpies’ quarrelling, rain will surely bring,’ ” he muttered, and with a few strokes of the whip mended the filly’s pace to a trot.
It was now well past eight, for the people in the fields were sitting down to breakfast, when he came to Timow: a small town whose empty narrow streets were lined with dilapidated houses, like rows of old saleswomen—lining gutters full of rubbish, and dirty Jewish children, and pigs.
He had scarcely entered, when crowds of Jews and Jewesses rushed round him, eager to look into his cart and fumble among the straw it was strewn with—even under the seat—to find anything he might have to sell.
“Off, ye scurvy louts!” he growled, turning into the marketplace, where, in the shadow of a few ancient decayed chestnut-trees slowly dying in the centre of the square, hard on a score of wagons were drawn up, their horses unharnessed.
He drove his own cart in there among them, brushed off the straw from his coat, and went straight to Mordko the barber’s, to get a shave. Presently he issued thence, clean-shaven, and with only one cut on his chin, plastered with a bit of paper, through which the blood oozed.
The court was not yet open; but in front of the building that stood right in the marketplace, opposite a very large church, a good many people had already assembled, and were sitting upon the timeworn steps, or lounging outside the windows. Women squatted along the white walls, chatting together, with the red aprons they had worn on their heads as they came, now fallen on to their shoulders.
Boryna perceived Eva holding her boy by the hand, and surrounded by her witnesses. A storm of anger surged within him. He spat contemptuously, and withdrew into the corridor that ran the whole length of the officials’ private lodgings. The judgment hall was to the left; the secretary occupied the right side.
Just then the manservant Yacek had passed the threshold of the lodgings with a samovar, and was blowing it so hard that it smoked like a factory chimney. From time to time a shrill angry voice was raised from the extremity of the smoke-darkened corridor.
“Yacek! the young ladies’ shoes!”
“Presently, presently.”
The samovar was now hissing, and spouting flames, and burning like a volcano.
“Yacek! water for master to wash!”
“Yes, yes, directly, directly!”
Perspiring, distracted, the man ran to and fro about the corridor till it rang again, and returned to blow, and went off anew; for his mistress now screamed:
“Yacek, you rascal, where are my stockings?”
“Confound this devil of a samovar!”
The scene continued for some time yet; but at last the door of the court opened, and in the people rushed, filling the large whitewashed hall.
Yacek was there again, now in his capacity as usher: barefooted, but in a dark-blue jacket and trousers of the same hue, and brass buttons. His red face perspiring freely, he wiped it with his sleeve as he slipped in behind the black grating by which the hall was divided into two parts. Tossing his head like a horse attacked by a gadfly (for his sandy hair fell over his eyes and into them), he sat down for a moment’s rest near a huge stove of green delf tiles, after peering cautiously into the adjoining room.
So many people had come in that the place was chock-full. They pressed against the grating till it shook, and after a time began to talk, the murmur of voices soon filling the whole room.
Under the windows outside, Jews were vociferating; within, women clamorously expounded their wrongs, and still more clamorously wept over them; but what those wrongs were, no one could make out. Everybody was cheek by jowl, like a field of red poppies or of rye, waving to and fro in the wind, and rustling and whispering; all clustered together.
It was then that Eva caught sight of Boryna, upright against the grating, and heaped insults upon him, till she cut him to the quick and he answered hotly:
“Silence, you bitch, or I’ll give you such a drubbing that your own mother won’t know you!”
Eva, in a fury, clawed at him, and tried to reach him through the press; but her kerchief fell off, and her child fell a-screaming. What might have happened, none can say: for just then Yacek started up, opened an inner door, and shouted:
“Hold your peace, yokels! The court is entering.”
It was indeed: the stalwart squire of Raciborowice, followed by two assistant magistrates, and the secretary. The latter, sitting down at a side-table, set some papers in order, and eyed the magistrates, as they put their gold chains round their necks, and took their places at a great table, covered with crimson cloth.
At once there fell such a silence that the men chattering outside the windows could be plainly heard; and the session began.
The first complaint was brought by a constable against a petty trader, on account of some nuisance in his yard.—Condemned in default.
Then the case of a boy flogged for having put horses to graze in clover.—A compromise: five roubles for the mother; a new jacket and trousers for the boy.
A complaint of encroachment in ploughing.—No evidence: set aside.
A case of theft of timber in a forest, the judge’s property: complainant, the administrator; defendants, the peasants of Rokiciny.—Fined, with alternative of a fortnight’s imprisonment. They gave notice of appeal, and made such a noise about the injustice of the sentence, they having the common right to cut firewood in the forest, that the head magistrate made a sign to Yacek, who thundered:
“Silence! silence in the court! This is not a tavern!”
And thus case after case, like furrow following furrow, was dispatched, evenly and quietly enough in general, with a few lamentations and sobs, or even curses at times; but these were promptly suppressed by Yacek.
Some of the people had withdrawn; but so many more came instead, that they all stood like cornstalks in a sheaf. No one could move, and it grew stiflingly hot, until the magistrate ordered the windows to be opened.
And now came the case of Bartek Koziol, of Lipka, accused of stealing a sow from Martianna Paches, daughter of Anthony. Witnesses, the aforesaid Martianna, her son Simon, Barbara Pyesek, etc.
“Are the witnesses present?” asked one of the assistant magistrates.
“We are here,” came the reply in chorus.
Boryna had hitherto stood patiently apart, close to the grating; but he now approached Paches to greet her; for she was no other than Dominik’s widow, Yagna’s mother.
“Let the defendant come up to the grating.”
A low-statured peasant pushed forwards.
“Are you Bartek Koziol?”
The peasant, seemingly bewildered, scratched his thick hair, of roundhead cut; a silly grin twitched his dry clean-shaven face, and his small red-fringed eyes kept leaping like squirrels from one judge to the other.
As he answered nothing, the judge repeated the question.
“Aye, aye, that he is; he is Bartek Koziol, an’t please the most honourable court!” cried an unwieldy woman, forcing her way inside the grating.
“What do you want?”
“An’t please you, I am the wife of this poor thing, Bartek Koziol”; and extending her hands, palms downwards to the floor, she bowed till her frilled cap touched the magistrates’ table.
“Are you a witness?”
“A witness, did you say? No, but please. …”
“Usher, outside the grating with her.”
“Get out, woman; this is not your place.”
He seized her by the shoulders and forced her back.
“An’t please this most honourable court,” she cried, “my husband is hard of hearing!”
“Out, before I treat you roughly!” Yacek roared, pushing her against the grating till she groaned with pain.
“Go peaceably; we shall speak loud enough for your Koziol to hear.”
The examination began.
“What is your name?”
“My name? Surely you know it, since you have called me. Is it my nickname you want?”
“Dolt! give your name,” said the inexorable magistrate.
“Bartek Koziol, most honourable court,” his wife replied for him.
“How old?”
“How am I to remember? Mother, what age am I?”
“Fifty-two next spring, I think.”
“A farmer?”
“Oh, yes: three acres of sandy land and one head of cattle; a fine farmer I am!”
“Ever sentenced?”
“Sentenced?”
“Were you ever put in prison?”
“Is it convicted you mean?—Mother, was I ever in prison?”
“Yes, Bartek, you were—through those rotten manor folks, on account of a dead lamb.”
“Ah, so I was.—I found a dead lamb in a pasture-meadow. Well, was it to be eaten by the dogs? So I took it; and they lodged a complaint against me, and swore I had stolen the beast, and the court passed sentence. They put me in prison, and there I had to lie.—But it was unjust—unjust!” he said in a low voice, and casting a side-glance at his wife.
“You are accused of stealing a sow, the property of Martianna Paches: of taking it out of the field, driving it to your hut, and killing and eating it. What defence have you?”
“I never ate it. If I did, may God forsake me at my dying hour! I eat it?—Well, I declare!”
“What defence have you?”
“Oh … defence?—Had I aught to say, Mother?—Ah, I remember now.—Yes: not guilty. I did not eat the sow, and this same Martianna Dominik’s widow is even as a barking dog!”
“Oh, what liars some men are!” the Dominik woman sighed.
“Explain how Paches’ sow got into your hut.”
“Into my hut—Paches’ sow?—Mother, what did the honourable squire say?”
“Why, Bartek, he asked you about the pig that followed you to our hut.”
“Oh, I know … I know now. I pray the honourable court to excuse me and listen to what I have said already and repeat now.—It was a pig and not a sow; a white pig, with a black patch about the tail … or somewhat lower down.”
“Well, but how did it get into your hut?”
“Into my hut? I will tell you all exactly as it took place, and show the right worshipful court and the people here assembled that I am innocent, and that the woman Dominik is a lying gipsy, a cursed and pampered shrew.”
“A lying. … May the Most Holy Mother grant you be struck dead unshriven!” the woman ejaculated, with a deep sigh, and a glance at an image of the Blessed Virgin that hung in a corner. Then she clenched her bony fist, shook it at him, and hissed:
“O you swine-stealer! you villain, you!” and she opened her talons as though about to claw him.
Here Bartek’s wife interfered, screaming:
“Would you then? would you hurt him, you jade, you witch, you tyrant of your sons?”
“Be quiet,” ordered the judge.
“Hold your tongues when the judge is speaking, or I’ll turn you both out of the place!” Yacek chimed in, holding up his trousers; for the braces had given way.
Silence was now restored, and the two old women, who had all but flown at each other’s throats, now stood mute, though looking daggers and breathing hate.
“Speak now, Bartek, and tell us the whole truth.”
“Yes, the truth, the truth itself, as clear as crystal. As if I were at confession.—It was in this wise. …”
“Look well into your head,” his wife Magda put in, “lest you should forget anything.”
“I will do so, Magda.—It was in this wise. I was walking along (it was in spring, and I was close to Boryna’s clover-field, just beyond the Wolf-Hole). … So I walked along, saying my prayers, for night was coming on.—Now, on my way, I heard … was it a voice, or not? I wondered. Did it grunt, or not? … Behind me I looked, but saw nothing: all was still. Was it the devil after me? … I went on my way, shuddering with fear, and said a Hail Mary. … Again—a grunt! So I said to myself it was only a sow, or it might be a pig. … But I walked a few steps aside into the clover; and what did I see? Something following me. I stopped, it stopped. A long white thing, low on its legs; its eyes blazed like a wildcat’s or a devil’s. … I crossed myself; and having gooseflesh, mended my pace. For I knew not what thing it could be, prowling thus by night. Also, as all men know, the Wolf’s Hole is a haunted place.”
“Yes, that’s a truth,” his wife observed; “last year Sikora was passing there at night, and something took him by the throat, threw him down, and beat him so, that he kept his bed for a fortnight.”
“Hold your peace, Madga.—So on, on, on I went, with the thing still running after me—and grunting! Just then the moon shone out clear, and I saw.—Lo, it was a pig, and no devil at all! … I was angered; for what did the foolish thing mean by frightening me thus? So, throwing a stick at it, I make for my home, along the path between Michael’s beetroots and Boryna’s wheat, and then between Thomas’ sown corn and Yashek’s oats (him they took to the army last year, and whose wife had a baby yesterday). … And the pig still ran after me as a dog would run, and then going on one side, and into Dominik’s potato-patch, grunted all the way. I turned off, and followed a slanting pathway across the fields: and it followed still.—I felt hot all over. My God! a strange sow!—Perhaps it was no sow! I went round nigh the crucifix, and the pig after me. … I leapt the ditch: it leaped too! Then I went to the mounds beyond the crucifix. … After me still! Then I ran by the pear-trees, and it came between my legs, and tripped me up. … I wondered whether it was a possessed pig! I had scarce got up, when it began to run on before me, with its tail in the air. ‘Away with you, then, you pest of a beast!’ I said. But it did not go from me: straight to my hut, to my very hut, did it go! It passed the fence, most honourable court! by the fence into the passage, and into the room through the open door. So help me God! Amen!”
“And so you killed and ate it, did you?” the magistrate asked, with a smile.
“Killed? Ate?—Well, what was to be done? One day went by: the pig would not go. A week passed, and there was no getting rid of it: it always returned, squealing. My wife gave it all she could to eat. Were we to let it starve? it was as much God’s creature as we were. … But let the most honourable court, in its wisdom, take this into account: what was I, a poor orphan, to do with it? Nobody came for the beast, we were needy people; and it ate, and ate … as much at least as two other pigs would have done. What then? In a month, we should have been eaten out of house and home, aye, and out of our skins too. … What, then, could we do? It was a case of eat or be eaten.—So we did; but only a little of it; for they heard of it in the village, and the Dominik woman complained to the Soltys, and came with him, and took everything away.”
“Everything, indeed!” interrupted the Dominik woman, angrily. “And what became of the hind quarters?”
“Ask that of Kruchek and the other dogs. We had put it into the barn for the night. Now, the dogs were on the watch, and there was a hole in the door; so they got in, and had a good feast on … what I am accused of stealing.”
“So the sow went after you by herself, did it? Tell that story to an idiot, not to this court! You thieving blackguard! Who was it took the miller’s ram? who stole his Reverence’s geese? Say who?”
“Have you seen who? have you seen?” shrieked Koziol’s wife, rushing forwards to use her nails. But the other continued mercilessly:
“Who plundered the organist’s potato-pit? Who is it that snaps up everything missing in the village—be it gosling, or chicken, or rake or hoe?”
“You carrion, you! All you did when a lass—what your Yagna is doing now with the farm-lads—oh, no one reminds you of that now, vile trollop that you have been!”
This stung Dominikova to the very quick. “You dare to name my Yagna!” she roared furiously. “You dare! I’ll knock your teeth down your throat!”
“Silence, hussies! or I shall have to drive you out!” said Yacek, to quiet them, holding his trousers up with one hand.
The witnesses were then heard.
Dominikova, the plaintiff, spoke first. She had taken a subdued and pious tone of voice, every now and then calling Our Lady of Chenstohova to witness. She averred that the sow was hers, that Koziol had stolen it from the meadow where it fed. She did not ask the most honourable court to punish him for that—may our Lord give him a longer time in purgatory instead!—but (and here she raised her voice to its loudest tones) for having heaped such foul outrages, and so publicly, upon Yagna and herself.
Simon, Dominikova’s son, with clasped hands held under his cap, as one saying prayers in church, and with his eyes always fixed upon the judge, bore witness afterwards, in a dull plaintive voice, saying that the sow was his mother’s, that it was white all over, with a black patch about the tail, and one ear torn by Lapa, Boryna’s dog, which had attacked her last spring, and she had squealed so that he could hear her from the barn.
Then came the other witnesses, who all confirmed what he said, while Magda poured denials and curses through the grating, and Dominikova kept her eyes fixed on the holy image, or on Koziol, who listened attentively, with glances darted now at the witnesses, now at his wife.
The audience gave ear with intense interest, sometimes uttering a murmur, or an ironical comment, or a peal of laughter, severely suppressed by Yacek.
The case was gone into thoroughly, and only settled after the adjournment of the court to discuss the matter; during which time the people dispersed into the passages and outside the building, to get a breath of air, take refreshments, speak to the witnesses, or hold forth about their wrongs: others again, to complain of injustice with fierce invectives, as is usual on such occasions.
The adjournment over and sentence given, Boryna’s case came on. Eva stood up in court, dandling her baby. With floods of tears, she related how she had come to serve at his house and worked herself off her legs, and never got a kind word, nor a corner to sleep in, no, nor enough to eat, so that she had to beg food from the neighbours, and he had not paid her, but driven her away, and his own child too, on to the high roads.—Here she burst into bitter tears, and fell at the feet of the magistrates, screaming.
“Such, most honourable court, is the wrong done me: and this is his child!”
Boryna muttered indignantly: “She lies, like the wretch that she is.”
“Lie? Why, the whole village of Lipka knows. …”
“That you are a wanton and a drab!”
“O most honourable court! and he used to call me Yevka and names more tender still; and would bring me beads, and often and often rolls, when he came from town; and would say: ‘Here you are, Yevka, here you are, my dearest!’ And now. … O Jesus! O Jesus!”
At that, she bellowed aloud.
“You gipsy trull! Why not say I brought you a featherbed too, and cried: ‘Sleep under it, Yevka, sleep!’ ”
There was a roar of laughter.
“What, did you not? Was there anything you did not promise me?”
“Good God!” exclaimed Boryna, in fierce bewilderment. “It’s monstrous! And yet the lightning has not struck her!”
“Honourable court, it is known to the world that this thing has been: all Lipka can testify that I speak the truth. Let the witnesses speak and bear testimony!” she cried out, with a tempest of tears and ejaculations.
As a matter of fact, however, all they had to say amounted only to bits of gossip and malicious talk: so she set herself again to bring forward what proofs she had. As a last resource, she displayed her baby and exposed it to the eyes of the judges, while it kicked up its naked legs and roared lustily.
“The honourable court,” she cried out, “will see with their own eyes whose it is: whose is this potato nose, whose are these grey-brown blear eyes? Boryna and he are as like as two drops of water.”
But this was too much for the court’s gravity; and the audience was also convulsed with uproarious merriment, when they compared the child with Boryna. Witticisms came forth in plenty.
“There’s a handsome lass for you. For all the world like a skinned dog!”
“Let the widower Boryna marry her: the boy will do for a swineherd.”
“Why, she is getting as bald as a cow in spring.”
“A comely girl she is! Put her as a scarecrow in a millet-field; all the birds will take fright.”
“Her face is smeared all over with grease and grime.”
“Because she’s a thrifty soul: washes once a year to save soap!”
“No wonder; she is so busy, having to light the Jews’ stoves.”
They were growing more and more caustic and biting every moment, and Eva stood dumbstruck, with the vacant look of a hunted dog in her eyes as she gazed round upon the crowd, hazily revolving something or other in her mind, when Dominikova called out aloud: “Be silent! It is a sin to revile an unfortunate like her!” Whereupon there was a sudden hush, and more than one man showed evident signs of shame.
But the accusation failed completely.
Boryna felt exceedingly relieved. Innocent as he was, he would have felt keenly both the scandal of a condemnation and the burden of an order to pay for the boy; and, as he thought, the law would often enough punish the innocent instead of the guilty: you never could tell. He knew many such cases.
He left the place directly, and, waiting till Dominikova joined him, began to consider the whole business again. He could not make out Eva’s motive in thus accusing him.
“No, it is not her doing; she has not the headpiece for that. Someone else has been egging her on.—Who can it be?”
He went with Dominikova and Simon to have a drink and a morsel to eat in a tavern; for it was past noon. Dominikova hinted that the whole business was the blacksmith his son-in-law’s work; but this he could not believe.
“What would he get by that?”
“The pleasure of worrying and mortifying you, and making you a laughingstock. That fellow would like to flay a man alive, just for the delight of the thing!”
“This spite of Eva’s—I cannot understand it. I never harmed her in any way; nay, I gave his Reverence a sack of oats at her bastard’s christening!”
“Why, she serves the miller; the miller is hand in glove with the blacksmith.—Don’t you see?”
“I see, but cannot account for it.—Have another drink?”
“Yes, please; but you first, Matthias.”
They had another drink, then a third, and finished off another pound of sausages, and half a loaf of bread; and Boryna bought a lot of rolls for Yuzka and prepared to depart.
“Come with me, Dominikova; we shall have a talk. It is tedious to be by oneself.”
“All right; but I must go to church first, and say some prayers.”
She was soon back, and off they started.
The sun was drawing westward by the time they reached the forest.
Now and then they said a few words to each other, but only out of courtesy: it would never do for them to sit moping together. But they only talked just enough not to doze, and to “keep their tongues wet,” as the saying goes.
Boryna whipped up the filly, which now, all in a lather, and tired and overheated, was going too slowly. He would whistle now and then, and again relapse into silence, ruminating and pondering over something in his mind, and calculating things: not infrequently stealing a look at the old woman, with that dried hard face, set and furrowed, and in hue like bleached wax. Her toothless jaws moved a little, as if she were praying silently. Sometimes she would draw the red apron she had tied round her neck, further over her brow; for the sun shone right into her face. She sat motionless, save for the gleaming of her grey-brown eyes.
“Have you dug all your potatoes?” he asked at length.
“We have. And a pretty good crop it is.”
“All the easier for you to keep a pig.”
“I am fattening one; it will come in handy during the carnival.”
“Surely, surely.—They say that Valek, Rafal’s son, has sent messengers to you with vodka.”
“Yes, and others have done the same; but they have lost their money. No, my Yagna is not for the likes of them.”
Raising her head, she looked him straight in the eyes, like a hawk. But Boryna, a man of mature years, was not confused as a youth might have been. He met her glance with calm and unfathomable serenity. For a considerable time neither spoke; each seemed vying in taciturnity with the other.
It was not fitting for Boryna to make the first advances. How could he—he, already past middle age, one of the first men in Lipka—blurt out to her that he had taken a fancy to her Yagna? Nevertheless, being of a hot temperament, he felt his choler rise within him, thus forced to parley and beat about the bush.
Dominikova saw he was annoyed, and knew why; but she would not help him out by so much as one word, and continued to eye him in silence. At last, however, in order to say something, she remarked:
“You look as hot as though it were harvest-time.”
“Because I am.”
And indeed it was very hot. The forest was all round them; its mighty barrier let no breath of air pass, and the sun burned so fiercely that the treetops, scorched with its rays, were drooping over the road, while a faint fungus-like odour, pungent in the nostrils, came up from the drying pools and the dry oak-leaves on the ground.
“Do you know,” said the old woman, “I, and others too, have often wondered why such a man as you, a man of such high repute amongst us, so wealthy and so much more able than most men—has no ambition to occupy some official position?”
“You are right to say I am without ambition. What would such a post profit me? I was Soltys here for three years: it cost me a pretty sum. I lost so much by it that my wife was angry with me.”
“She was quite right. To be an official always ought to mean both honour and profit.”
“Thank you! A great honour it is, surely, to have to bow to the constables, and lout low to every clerk and every underling at court. … And if taxes are unpaid, or a bridge is out of order, or if a dog hit by a cart-shaft goes mad, who is to blame? Why, the Soltys always! And the profit! How many a fowl and goose and score of eggs have I not had to send to the clerks and the district officials!”
“You say true; but then Peter the Voyt here has no grounds of complaint. He has purchased some land, and built a barn too.”
“Yes; but when he is Voyt no longer, what will he do?”
“Then you think that. …”
“Oh, I have my eyes open, and can see a thing or two.”
“He is most conceited, and at sixes and sevens with the priest.”
“And if he gets on at all, it is his wife’s doing: she is the real Voyt, and holds all the cards in her hands.”
There was silence again for the space of a long pater noster.
“Tell me,” she said at last, very deliberately, “are you not going to send anyone messengers with vodka?”
“Ah, the desire of women is no longer with me: I am an old man.”
“Do not speak vain words. A man is old when he can go about no more, nor lift a spoon to his mouth by himself, nor sit elsewhere but by the stove. Why, I have seen you shouldering a sackful of rye!”
“Granted that I am yet hale: but who would care to have me?”
“That you cannot know until you have tried.”
“Besides, my children are grown up, and I cannot take the first lass that comes.”
“Make a deed of gift, and the very best of them will not hold back.”
“A deed of gift! To get an acre of land, a girl would take a beggar from the church porch.”
“What of men? They wouldn’t take a girl with a dowry, would they?”
He made no reply, but whipped the filly to a gallop.
Another silence ensued, broken only when they were out of the forest and upon the poplar-lined road; when Boryna suddenly exclaimed:
“To the devil with the world as it goes on now! For everything, nay, even for a good word, you must pay! It is so bad that worse cannot be. Even children rise up against their parents; there is nowhere any obedience, and everyone would devour everyone else! The dogs!”
“They are fools, not remembering that we shall all lie one day together in consecrated ground.”
“One has scarce begun to be a man, when he flies in his father’s face, loudly demanding a portion of his land; and the young only scoff at the old. Scoundrels, for whom their own village is a hole, who despise all ancient rules, and who—some of them—are even ashamed of their peasant’s dress!”
“All because they have not the fear of God.”
“Because or not because of that, things are wrong.”
“And will surely not mend.”
“They must! But who can compel men to do right?”
“God’s judgments! For behold, That Day will come, and He will punish them!”
“Yes, but before That Day, how many shall be lost!”
“Times are so bad, that a plague were better.”
“Times are bad, but men are so, too. What of the blacksmith? And of the Voyt? They quarrel with our priest, they make people rebel; they seduce them and are believed by the purblind. That blacksmith, though my son-in-law, is yet as poison to me.”
They continued to complain in chorus of the world’s wickedness, as they looked through the poplars towards the village they were nearing.
In the distance, there could be seen, outside the churchyard, a row of women bending down, indistinctly visible through a thin haze round them, and the dull monotonous thudding sound of cluttering swingles came to them, borne on the breeze from the low-lying meadows.
“Just the weather for scutching flax. I shall get down to speak to them, for Yagna is there too.”
“I’ll drive you to her; it will make no difference to me.”
“How very kind you are today, Matthias!” she said with a sly smile.
They turned off from the poplar road to the byway that led over the fields to the churchyard. There, outside the low wall of grey stone which surrounded it, in the shadow of some birches and maples, and of a few crosses, too, which leaned over the wall, hard on twenty women were very busily scutching and beating the dry flax: a mist of threads hung over them in the air, and a few filaments had caught on to the yellow birch-leaves, or hung suspended from the dark-hued arms of the crosses. Further down, fires had been kindled in pits, over and across which poles were laid, and upon them damp flax was drying.
The swingles were hard at work, and all the womenfolk bent and rose with quick short jerks up and down: now and then one or another stood up, beat a wisp of flax free from remnants of woody matter, and, rolling it up, tossed it on to a piece of linen spread out in front of her.
The sun, being at present over the forest, shone directly in their faces, but they did not mind: work and laughter and merry talk never ceased for an instant.
“God bless your work!” cried Boryna to Yagna, who was swingling the flax with all her might. She had nothing on but her white smock, a red petticoat, and an apron tied over her head against the dust.
“Bless you for the wish!” she returned blithely, raising her dark-blue eyes to his, while a smile lit up her handsome sunburnt face.
“Is it quite dry, dear?” her mother asked, fingering the scutched flax.
“Dry as a peppercorn; quite brittle.”
And again she eyed the old man with a smile that made him tingle all over. He smacked his whip and drove away, looking back at her again and again, though she was not to be seen any more; for his mind’s eye saw her still.
“A girl as graceful as a hind!” he muttered. “Aye, even so!”