X
“I speak of this, both from the pulpit, and to every man in particular. …”—The wind put an end to the rest of the sentence by blowing violently down the priest’s throat, making him fall into a fit of coughing. Antek was silent.
The gale was growing fiercer, sweeping down the road, lashing the poplars, storming through them, and causing them to bend and moan and shriek aloud with rage.
“Man, I have told you,” the priest went on to say, “that I myself took the mare down to the pond. … Blind as she is, she may go astray in some coppice, and perhaps break a leg.”—The very thought made him turn pale, and he continued looking under every tree, and seeking in every field.
“Well, but she always went about freely.”
“She knows well her way to the pond. Anyone might find a pail for her to drink from, and then turn her round: she would have come back by herself. … Valek!” he suddenly cried, thinking he saw someone among the poplars.
“I saw Valek on our side of the pond; but that was before twilight set in.”
“Gone perhaps to look for her: a little too late! … A mare twenty years old! She was foaled soon after I came here, and deserves to be fed for mercy’s sake. … As much attached as any man can be. … Good Heavens! if any harm should have befallen the poor beast!”
“What on earth can happen?” Antek growled, in a surly mood. He had come to his Reverence to complain and get counsel; and he had been, not only reprimanded, but asked to seek the lost mare besides! No doubt the mare, so old and blind, deserved pity; but ought not a fellow-man to come first?
“As to you, you are to master yourself; do you hear? And curse him not! he is your father!”
“Oh, that,” said Antek very bitterly, “that I know well.”
“It were a grievous sin and offence against God. And no blessing will there be for him that in anger raises his hand against his father, to break the commandment!”
“I want justice: no more.”
“No, ’tis revenge you seek. … Am I wrong?”
Antek was at a loss for an answer.
“Now I will tell you one thing more: ‘A docile calf, beyond all doubt, thrives, sucks much milk, and waxes stout.’ ”
“ ‘Docile!’ The word sticks in my throat, I have so much of it. Shall I allow a man to do me every wrong in the world, simply because he is my father? Are children forbidden to seek justice for the wrong done?—Good God! if that’s the order of things, I had as lief bid it farewell, and go anywhere to get away from it.”
“Go, then; what is it prevents you?” cried the priest, taking fire on a sudden.
“Well may I go: what—what is there left to me here now?” he muttered, almost in tears.
“You are simply talking nonsense. Others have not one bit of land: yet they stay on, and work, and thank God that they have work to do. You had far better settle down to do something, and not complain like a woman. You are strong and able, and have something to lay your hands to besides. …”
“Yes, indeed; three whole acres!” was the ironical reply.
“And a wife and child, who belong to you too: do not forget it.”
They were now in front of the tavern; the windows were all aglow, and from the road where they stood they could hear voices inside.
“What! another drunken bout?”
“ ’Tis the recruits who were chosen during the summer, drinking to keep their spirits up. Next Sunday the Russians will take them away to somewhere at the back of the world: so they are seeking comfort.”
The priest had taken his stand near the poplars, from where he could look through the window, and see how thronged the place was. “Why, the tavern is well-nigh full!” he exclaimed.
“They were to have a meeting and advise together today, about the forest clearing which the Squire has sold to the Jews.”
“But he has sold only the half.”
“Till we have agreed to the sale, not one bush shall be sold!”
“What do you say?” the priest inquired, in a tone of anxiety.
“We don’t give leave: that’s flat. Father would go to law; but Klemba and the others with him won’t have it. They forbid a single tree to be cut down; and if the whole village has to rise, rise they will—aye, and ax in hand, too. What is theirs, they never will give up.”
“Merciful heavens! Pray God there may be no violence!”
“No, no! only a few of the manor-folks’ heads split in two: that will be but justice!”
“Antek! has anger made you mad? My good fellow, this is senseless talk!”
He would not listen, but turned on his heels and vanished in the gathering dusk; while the priest, who heard the rumble of wheels and a mare’s whinny, hastened back to his dwelling.
Antek passed by the mill on the other side, wanting to avoid going near Yagna’s hut.
She was fast in his bosom: a festering wound of which he could not rid himself.
Afar, the light shone bright from within her cabin. In there it was joyful. He stopped to look once more, were it but to curse her in his rage. And suddenly something fell on him like a hurricane, and tore him away.
“She is my father’s now!—My father’s!”
He went round to his brother-in-law, the smith, though expecting no advice from the man, and only wanting to remain a short time away from his father’s dwelling, and in somebody’s company.—Ah! the priest would preach work to him, would he? Preaching to others was an easy thing for those who have nothing to trouble them!—“Remember your wife and child!”—Was he likely to forget them? Her! … whom he loathed so, with her wailing and her meekness and wistfully glancing eyes! Were it not for her … were he but single!—O Lord! He groaned deeply; a wild fit of anger swept over him, and he would have liked to take someone by the throat—strangle him—tear him to pieces! …
But whom? He knew not. His fury passed away as suddenly as it had come. He looked blankly out into the night and hearkened to the whistling blasts. Then he walked on, trudging heavily, scarce able to drag himself; for now he felt weighed down by a mountain of sorrow, lassitude, and such a sense of prostration that he no longer knew whither he was going, nor for what purpose.
“Yagna is my father’s—my father’s!” he repeated again and again, each time in a lower key.
In the smith’s shop, a boy was working the bellows with might and main, and the draught that poured on to the flaring roaring embers made them burst into bloodred flames. The smith stood at the anvil, grimy-faced, girt with a leather apron, his arms bare, his cap on the back of his head, beating a red-hot iron bar till the anvil resounded, while showers of sparks flew from beneath the hammer, and fell hissing into the moist ground of the forge.
“Well?” he asked, after waiting a moment.
“Well, what?” Antek mumbled, leaning against a basket-wagon frame, several of which were standing by to have their ironwork repaired; and he gazed into the fire.
The smith went on, working hard at the incandescent iron, and beat away, keeping time as he smote upon the anvil with his hammer; or, when a yet more powerful blast was needed, helping the boy to blow; but ever and anon stealing a glance at Antek, while a malicious smile peeped from under his red moustache.
“Well, so you have been to his Reverence again: and what has come of it?”
“And what should come? Nothing. I might have heard just the same in church.”
“What else did you think to get?”
“Why, he knows a great deal,” Antek replied in self-defence.
“As to taking, yes; as to giving, no.”
Antek was in no mood to contradict him.
“I am going to your cabin,” he said after a pause.
“Go; I shall join you at once, for the Voyt is to be here. You will find tobacco on the top of the press: help yourself.”
Antek had not so much as heard him, as he made straight for the house which stood opposite.
His sister was kindling the fire, and her eldest boy, at the table, learning out of a spelling-book.
“Is he studying?” he asked; for the boy spelt aloud, pointing to each letter with a sharp stick.
“Yes. He began at potato-digging-time. The young lady from the mill is teaching him, for my husband is too busy.”
“Roch, too, began teaching on Father’s side of our cabin yesterday.”
“I wanted to send our Johnny to him, too: but Michael will not have it. He says she knows more, because she has been at school in Warsaw.”
“Oh, yes. Yes,” he answered, in order to say something.
“Johnny gets on so fast with his primer that the young lady is astonished.”
“Oh, of course. It’s the smith’s blood, you see—being the son of so clever a man. …”
“You are jeering. And yet was he not right to tell you that Father can, so long as he lives, withdraw any settlement made?”
“Aye, try to snatch its prey from out of the wolf’s mouth! … Six acres of land! My wife and I are both as good as his farm-servants; and see, he settles the land on the first strange woman he comes across!”
“You will wrangle, and fall foul of him, and ask for advice against him; and the end will be that he will drive you from his house into the bargain!” She spoke thus, looking timorously towards the door.
“Who told you that?”
“Hush, hush! That’s what people are saying.”
“He shall not! Let him get me out by force, if he can! I’ll go to law. But as to giving way, never, never!”
“Yes, you’ll butt your head against a stone wall, like a ram, but never get it smashed, eh?” the smith said, coming in.
“Then what’s to be done? You give clever advice to everybody; advise me.”
“It will never do to run counter to the old man’s will.” He lit a pipe, and set about explaining matters, excusing Boryna, and smoothing things over, till all at once Antek saw his drift, and cried out:
“You—you are on his side!”
“I want to be fair.”
“You have been well paid for this.”
“Not out of your pocket, at all events.”
“My property is not yours to give up in my place. You no doubt have had a good instalment already, and are in no hurry to get more.”
“I have had no more than you.”
“Oh, no more? And what about your share of the cow? And all the pieces of linen, and odds and ends you have sneaked out of Father? Have I forgotten the geese, and the young pigs … and … and … there’s no end of them! Ah, and the calf he gave you the other day? Is that nothing?”
“You might have got it just as well as I.”
“I am not a gipsy, nor a thief!”
“A thief! Do you call me that?”
They both rushed forward, ready to spring at each other. But they stopped, for Antek went on more calmly:
“I was not speaking of you. But never will I abandon my rights, even to be saved from utter ruin.”
The smith interposed, with a jeer: “It is not the land, I fancy, for which you would go to such lengths.”
“For what then?”
“It is Yagna you want, and rage to lose her now!”
“Did you ever see … ?” he cried; the shot had hit the mark.
“There be those who have seen … and not once only.”
“May their eyes drop out of the sockets!” But he said this curse very low; for just then the Voyt entered the room. Probably he too was aware of the reason why they quarrelled, for he at once set to justifying and defending the old man’s behaviour.
“That you stand up for him is no wonder: he has given you drink and sausages in plenty!”
“No careless talk, pray; I, the Voyt, am speaking to you.”
“For your Voytship I care as I care for this broken stick!”
“What!—what has the man said?”
“You have heard; and if not, you shall hear other things which will go yet farther.”
“Say them, then, if you dare!”
“I will.—Behold, you are a drunkard, a Judas, a dissembler; one that squanders in revels the money the village has entrusted to him, and takes abundant pay from the manor, to let the Squire sell our forest land. … Will ye I say more?” he added furiously, snatching at a stick. “So I will, but with this cudgel, not with my tongue.”
“Take care you rue not what you are doing, Antek; I am a man in office!”
“And do not fly at anyone under my roof! This is no tavern!” the smith shouted, placing himself in front of the Voyt. But Antek, now wrought up to exasperation, poured a volley of abuse on them both, slammed the door, and left them.
“Now,” he was saying to himself, while breakfasting the next day, “now they will all be against me!” when, to his stupefaction, he saw the blacksmith come in. They met on their usual terms.
When Antek went to the barn afterwards to chop straw, the smith followed him, and said in confidential tones:
“I’ll be hanged if I know why we quarrelled … some silly word dropped, belike. So I am first to come to you and shake hands.”
Antek shook hands indeed, but grunted, with a look of mistrust:
“Yes, some hasty words passed between us; but I felt no grudge against you. That Voyt made me frantic. … Let him mind his own business, and keep himself to himself, or. …”
“So I told him, when he wanted to follow you out. …”
“To fight me?—I would have given him such a dressing as I gave his cousin, who has been smashed up ever since harvest-time!”
“Of that, too, did I remind him,” the smith observed, with a demure look and a sly leer.
“But I will settle with him yet … with that great man, that Jack in office! He will remember me!”
“He is not worth your notice: let him be.—I have had an idea, and have come now to tell you about it. This is what we have to do. … This afternoon my wife will come here. You will go with her to old Boryna, and talk the matter over thoroughly. … Of what use is complaining in holes and corners? Speak your mind out to him face to face. Perhaps you will succeed, perhaps not; but at all events we shall have threshed the matter out.”
“But what is to be done, now the settlement has been made?”
“You see, by wrangling we shall get nothing at all. Yes, he has made it. But, so long as he lives, he has the power to revoke it. Do you understand? That is the reason why we must not irritate him. He wants to marry: well, let him. And to enjoy himself: why not?”
At the mention of marriage, Antek turned white, and shook so that he paused in his work.
“Do not oppose him openly. Approve him. Say he was right to make the settlement, since he chose to do so: only ask him to promise us the rest—that is, to you and me, and in presence of witnesses,” he added, with a sly afterthought.
“Yes, but what of Yuzka, what of Gregory?” Antek inquired reluctantly.
“They shall get money instead. Gregory has been receiving not a little every month, ever since he has been in the army.—But just listen, and do as I tell you; you will not regret it. My management of things will make all the land ours in the end, my life on it.”
“ ‘To sew the sheep’s skin do not strive, furrier, while the sheep’s alive.’ ”
“Listen—Let him but make a promise in presence of witnesses: we shall then have something to lay hold on. We can still fall back on the courts of justice. And there is another point besides: the land he got as your mother’s dowry.”
“A great thing, forsooth: four acres for me and your sister … four whole acres!”
“But these he has not given to either; and for so many years he has sown therein and garnered therefrom! For these he must pay you well, aye, and with percentage too! … I tell you once more: oppose the old man in nothing. Go to the wedding; do not grudge him fair words. We shall manage him, you will see. And if he is after all unwilling to give the promise, the law may then come in and force him. You are on very familiar terms with Yagna, and she may be very useful to you: only speak of this to her. No one could better succeed in bringing the old man round.—Well, is it agreed? For I must be stirring.”
“Agreed!—That you get out quick, or I will smite you in the face and drive you out of doors!” Antek hissed through his clenched teeth.
“What … what has come over you?” the blacksmith stammered, appalled by the looks of the other, who dropped the straw-cutter and came on, with eyes terribly gleaming and face as pale as a sheet.
“Thief! carrion! traitor!” He spat the words out, his mouth was foaming with hate as he advanced, and the smith fairly ran for it.
“Has the man lost his wits?” he said, as soon as he was out in the road. “I was giving him good counsel … and he—Oh, that’s your game, is it? You would have struck me, driven me out, because I wanted to share the land with you, and came to you as to a friend and a brother! Is that your game … to have all to yourself? Ha! you will not live to see the day, my man! Though you wormed my thoughts out of me so cleverly, I will give you such a shaking, the worst ague will be nothing beside it!” He grew angrier and still more angry, as he reflected that Antek had taken him in so, and would inform old Boryna of all this intrigue.—The very thing he feared most of all!
“But that must at once be prevented!” He swiftly came to a decision, and though in bodily fear of Antek, went back to Boryna’s.
“Is your master at home?” he asked Vitek, who was opposite the house, throwing pebbles at the geese in the pond to make them land.
“Over there at the miller’s: gone to invite their people to his wedding.”
“I shall go that way: perhaps we may meet,” he thought, and made for the miller’s; but he went home first, and told his wife to dress her best, take the children with her, and go round to Antek’s at the first stroke of the noonday Angelus.
“He will tell you what to do. … Do nothing by yourself, for you are not clever; only fall a-crying at the right time, embrace your father’s knees and beseech him, and all that. But give good heed to what Antek shall say and your father reply.” And so he went on instructing her for some time.
“Now I shall look in at the mill: perhaps our meal is ground.” He was too uneasy to stay any longer in the house and, going out, walked on slowly, often halting to consider.
“The man threatened me; yet he’ll do as I told him, I think. Better my wife should be there, and not I.—What else can he do but what I say?—Quarrel—and be expelled!”
He smiled in triumph, set his cap straight and buttoned up his capote, for a chill piercing wind came from the pond.
“There will be frost, surely, or else dirty weather,” he predicted, standing on the bridge and looking into the sky, where a scud of driven clouds was passing, not unlike a flock of muddy unwashed sheep. The pond uttered a low murmur, now and then beating upon its shores, along which, scattered about amongst blackened drooping alders and weeping willows, the outlines of women washing linen appeared, traced in red, and the obstreperous clatter of their bats rose on either bank. The roads were empty, save for the numerous flocks of geese, soiled with stiffening mire, that were waddling in and out of the ditches, now filled up with dead leaves and rubbish. Children outside the houses squealed and screamed; and the cocks crowed in the hedges—weather-prophets telling of a change.
“Better wait for him at the mill!” he growled and walked down the slope.
Antek, when the smith left him, had set to chopping straw so frantically that he forgot everything but his work; and Kuba, returning from the wood, cried out aloud:
“Mercy! there will be enough of it for a week’s fodder!” And then Antek woke up from his musings, threw the straw-cutter aside, stretched himself, and went into the hut.
“What must be will be,” he reflected, “and I must speak to my father this day.—That blacksmith fellow is a lying traitor; his advice may be good, for all that. Nay, there must be something in it.” He peeped in at his father’s door, and at once drew back; a score of urchins were sitting there. Roch was teaching them, and paying great heed to their behaviour; going round with beads in hand, hearing their lessons, correcting them at times; at others pulling one boy’s ear or patting another’s head, but for the most part sitting patiently and explaining the printed matter, or putting questions, which the children hastened to answer in chorus as fast as they could, gobbling like a troop of little turkeys when excited.
Hanka was getting dinner ready, and having a talk with her father, old Bylitsa, who seldom came, because he was always ailing and could hardly move about.
He sat close to the window, his chin and hands on his staff; hoary-headed, with a twitch of the lips and a treble voice like a bird’s, accompanied by thin wheezing sounds in the windpipe.
“Have you breakfasted?” she inquired.
“To say true, Veronka forgot me.”
“Oh, she even starves her dogs! they often come to me for food,” she cried. Her elder sister and she had been on bad terms ever since last winter, when their mother had died, and Veronka seized on all she had left, refusing to give anything up; which had estranged them.
He took her part in a feeble voice. “They have not too much for themselves. Staho threshes at the organist’s, where he gets food and a score of kopeks daily besides. And there are many mouths to feed in the cabin: the potato-patch cannot suffice for all. True, they have a couple of milch-cows and take butter and cheese to town, and get a few coppers; but she often forgets to give me my meals. Yet I do not want much … only a little every day, and at the right hour. …”
“Then come to us in spring, since you are so ill off with that jade!”
“But I make no complaint, no fuss; only. …” His voice died into silence.
“With us, you could tend the geese, and see to the children.”
“Hanka,” he said under his breath, “there is nothing that I would not do.”
“There is room for you here; I should put up a bed for you and make you cosy.”
“Oh, if I could but be with you, Hanka, and never go back to them, I would sleep in the cow-house or the stable,” he answered in a husky beseeching voice. “They took my featherbed from me; she says the children have nothing to sleep on. It is true that they were cold, so I had them with me. But my sheepskin is all torn, and does not keep me warm at all; and where I sleep there is no fire, and she will not let me have any wood, and counts every spoonful that I eat, and sends me out a-begging, and I am so weak I can scarcely crawl to your house.”
“Good God! and you never told me this was so!—Why?”
“How could I? she is my daughter!—And he is a good-hearted man, but very little in the house.—How could I?”
“She is a hag! She took half the land and half the cabin, and the other things. … So that’s the board and lodgings she promised to give you! We must go to law: they were bound to let you have food and firing, and clothing too.—And we were to give twelve roubles a year: have we not kept our promise, say?”
“Surely! For you are upright folk.—But those few zloty that I have saved for my burial—I had to give them up too, I could not help it.” He said no more but sat crouching in his place, more like a heap of rags than a human being.
After dinner, when the smith’s wife came with her children and greeted Hanka, the old man took up a bundle prepared for him by his daughter, and vanished unnoticed.
Boryna had not come home to dine.
The smith’s wife was determined to see him, nevertheless, though she should have to wait till nightfall. Hanka had set up a loom near the window, where she set to work, drawing the woof of hempen thread across the warp assiduously, and but seldom and timidly taking part in the talk between Antek and his sister. His conversation with her about their grievances did not last long, however; for Yagustynka dropped in, saying in a casual tone:
“I have just come here from the organist’s, where they need me for the washing. Matthias was there only just now, together with Yagna, to invite them to the wedding. They are coming. Yes, everyone to his people: the rich to the rich. They have asked the priest also.”
“What! have they dared His Reverence!” Hanka exclaimed.
“Is he, then, so sacred a being? They asked him, and he said he might possibly come. Why not? Is the girl ill-looking? will the food be bad? and will there be little to drink? The miller and wife and daughter have promised. Ho, ho! There will not have been such a wedding since Lipka was Lipka!—I know, for I shall be cooking with Eva—her from the miller’s. Ambrose has killed a pig for them, and sausages are making now …” She broke off abruptly, noticing that no one asked any questions, or spoke at all. She looked round at them as they sat gloomily there, and, eyeing them attentively, cried out:
“I say! there is a storm brewing here!”
“Storm or no storm, what is that to you?” the smith’s wife answered, so tartly that Yagustynka was offended, rose, and went over to Yuzka in the other lodgings, who (the children having just departed) was setting chairs and benches in order.
“Father is not likely to grudge himself anything,” the smith’s wife remarked, in an aggrieved tone.
“Oh, he can well afford it!” Hanka rejoined, and broke off abruptly, seeing Antek look fiercely at her.—They sat waiting in almost complete silence. From time to time a word was said; then that dull, crushing, ominous speechlessness came over them once more.
“He must have cash enough: he is always selling things, and never spending.”
Antek’s only rejoinder to his sister’s words was a wave of the hand; and he went out of the room to get some fresh air. He was feeling ever more and more uneasy; nor could he tell why. He now expected his father, and felt impatient at the delay, yet glad in his heart not to have met with him yet.—“It is not the land you are angry about, it is Yagna!”—Those words, uttered by the smith the day before, now suddenly came back to him.—“He is a lying dog!” was the cry of rage which burst from his lips. And he set to work at the outer wall which was to protect the hut from the side of the courtyard. Vitek brought him litter from the heap; Antek drove in the laths to form the wall, and rammed the litter down inside it; but his hands were trembling, he had to stop working more than once, and lean against the cabin walls, and look out through the bare leafless trees over the pond to Yagna’s hut.—No, it was not love that was now growing within him, but anger and hatred in numberless billows! She, the jade—she, the hateful one!—They had thrown her a bone, and off she went after it!
Such were his thoughts. But then there swept over him remembrances coming up—whence, he knew not—laying siege to his heart, clinging to his mind, even visible to his senses … and the sweat bedewed his brow, his eyes flashed, a thrill ran through him.—Ah, there in the orchard! Ah, then in the forest! And again, when they once were coming from town together!
All at once he reeled; he again saw that burning face, those deep-blue eyes, those wondrous full red lips; and he heard her quick-drawn breaths of passion, and her voice, low and husky with love and rapture, calling to him: “Antek! Antek!” And she was again bending towards him, very close—he felt her touch him with all her throbbing self! … But he rubbed his eyes to drive away that too sweet phantom, and his implacable resentment again oozed icily from his heart, as the drops fall from the icicles under the eaves, when the spring sun shines upon them, and love awakens once more; within his soul, agonized yearning lifted her thorn-crowned head once more—a yearning so bitter that he would fain have eased it by clutching at any pain whatsoever, or by shrieking to rouse the dead!
“May a brimstone thunderbolt strike her!” he cried out; but, suddenly recollecting himself, he cast a sharp glance round, fearing lest Vitek should have understood whom he meant.
He had spent those three last weeks in a fever of expectancy, awaiting the happening of some miracle. As for him, he could do nothing, prevent nothing!
And of late, insane thoughts had often surged up in his mind, insane resolves. Often had he gone out to meet her, and many a night had he watched outside her cabin, in the rain and the cold. But she had not come out.—She shunned him!
No, no, no! Every instant he grew more angry against her, against the whole framework of things. She was his father’s!—A strange woman, an adventuress, a thief who had robbed him of his land, the most precious of all possessions! Smite her he would—aye, beat the life out of her!
More than once he had determined to confront his father, and tell him to his face: “You cannot have Yagna; she is mine!” But the very thought made his hair stand on end.—What would his father, what would all the village say?
So now she, that same Yagna, was to be his stepmother—his mother … of a sort! How could that be? Was it not a sin, a most grievous one? He was afraid to think of it: the thought of some awful judgment of God at hand made his heart die within him. … And yet, to say nothing—to bear all this within himself, as one bearing in his bosom coals of fire that burned to the bone—that was beyond the endurance of man!
And the wedding was but a week away!
“Master is coming,” Vitek cried; and Antek felt he was shaking with dismay.
It was getting dark.
It was getting cold, too; the ground was freezing, the air eager and nipping, but clear as usual when a frost is setting in, and wafting sound so well that the bellowing and trampling of the cattle driven to water, the creaking of the gates and bucket-dippers, the noises of the children and the dogs, were all heard distinctly across the pond. From some windows, there gleamed lights already, throwing athwart the waters their long, broken, quivering reflections; while, from behind the woods, the huge red full moon was slowly ascending.
Boryna, attentive to farm matters, came into the yard, and rated Kuba and Vitek soundly for having let the calves stray from their stalls and wander to the cows’ mangers; so, when he entered the house, his visitors were awaiting him. They said nothing, but just gave one glance, and looked down, as he stopped short in the middle of the room, eyed them, and asked scornfully:
“All here? What, come to sit in judgment, hey?”
“No, indeed,” the smith’s wife returned, timorously; “we only come to you with a petition.”
“But why is your goodman not here?”
“He was very busy, and could not come.”
“Aha! Busy … yes.” He smiled knowingly, threw his capote aside, and pulled off his boots. All remained tongue-tied the while, uncertain how to begin. The smith’s wife cleared her throat and drew her children closer; Hanka, on the threshold, was suckling her little boy, and casting uneasy looks at Antek, who sat by the window thinking what he should say, and shaking all over with emotion. Yuzka alone was calm, peeling potatoes by the fireplace.
“Now, then, say what you have to say,” the old man cried sharply, irritated by the silence.
“Better you, Antek, should speak first—about that settlement: we shall follow,” the smith’s wife stammered.
“The settlement? It is made, and the wedding is to be on Sunday: that I can tell you.”
“We know, but we came for another reason.”
“What is it?”
“You have settled six whole acres!”
“I chose to: if I choose, I can settle everything on her, and this instant!”
“You may, if all belongs to you,” Antek retorted.
“And whose else is it—whose?”
“Your children’s. Ours.”
“That’s nonsense. Mine the land is, and I can do with it as I please.”
“Or not yours, and not to do as you please.”
“Will you prevent me—you?”
“I shall … we all shall; and if not, we have the law to protect us.” He could no longer control himself, and was raging.
“Ah! you do threaten me with the law, forsooth?—Hold your peace ere I am angered, or you’ll rue it.”
“Wrong us ye shall not!” cried Hanka in a loud voice, rising to her feet.
“And what is’t she wants—she?—She brought us three acres of sand, and one piece of canvas cloth: and she dares wag her tongue here!”
“You have given Antek still less: not even the land, his mother’s dowry; we are as your farm-labourers!”
“But in return for your work you get all that three of my acres yield.”
“For work that is worth the yield of more than twenty.”
“If unfairly treated, go elsewhere and fare better.”
Here Antek shouted: “We will not! The land is ours, come down from our grandsires and forefathers.”
Old Boryna glared at him, but answered nothing. He seated himself by the fire and, taking up a poker, used it on the brands till the sparks flew on every side. He was flushed with passion; his hair again and again came tumbling into his eyes, phosphorescent like a wildcat’s; but he had some self-control still left.
A long pause ensued, and the stillness of the room was broken only by the hurried breaths drawn there.
“We have naught against your marrying; marry, if you like.”
“And if you have aught, much difference will it make to me!”
“Only revoke that settlement!” added Hanka, in tears.
“Oh, that peevish mother of dogs! Always chattering like a fool!” And he poked the fire so furiously that the sparks flew all about the room.
“Take heed! She is no wench of yours, that you should speak such words to her!”
“Why should she prate, then?”
“She has a right to speak!” Antek shouted; “she stands up for what is our due.”
“If you will,” the smith’s wife murmured, “let the settlement stand, but settle the rest of your property on us.”
“Look at that simpleton! Going to divide my land, eh? No, I’ll never take board and lodgings from you.—I have spoken.”
“We will not give in! We will have justice!”
“If I but take my stick to you, I’ll give you justice!”
“Try but to touch us!—You’d not live till the wedding!”
And now the squabble began in earnest; they rushed forwards, threatening; they beat the table with their fists, they shouted aloud all their grievances, all their injuries. Antek, in his anger, forgot himself so far as again and again to clutch his father by the shoulder, even by the throat, so furious was he; but the old man was yet master of himself. He wished to have no fight, and merely pushed him aside, seldom replying to insults, and unwilling to have the whole village taking part in his affairs. But the noise and confusion in the room waxed louder and louder; for both the women were weeping and pouring forth invectives alternately, while the children screamed so that both Kuba and Vitek came round from the farmyard and peeped in at the window.
Hanka, leaning against the chimney penthouse, here burst into a torrent of tears and words:
“Yes, we shall have to go out into the world and beg our bread! O Lord, good Lord! … we that have toiled like oxen! … What have we now of our labour? … Ah, God will avenge this wrong of ours! … His judgment will be upon you! … Six whole acres settled—and mother’s clothing and beads given away … everything! And to whom, great God? … To that swine! … Oh! wanton and harlot as you are! For the wrong you are doing us, may you end in a ditch some day!”
“What do you say?” the old man shrieked, darting furiously towards her.
“That she is a harlot and a wanton—as all the village and all the world knows!”
“Woe betide you! I’ll beat your foul mouth to pulp!” He seized and shook her; but Antek leaped forwards to protect her, and shouted in his turn:
“And I say it too: she is a wanton, a harlot, and anyone may know her that cares!”—But he said no more. Boryna, in a paroxysm of rage, struck him such a blow in the face that he fell with his head breaking the pane of a glazed press, which he brought to the floor with him. Springing up instantly, streaming with blood, he charged his father.
They both rushed at each other like mad dogs, with a mutual clutch, driving and being driven backward and forward about the room, pushing and hurling one another against the bed, the great trunk, the walls, till their heads rang again. A horrible outcry arose: the womenfolk tried to separate them, but they rolled down upon the floor, so closely gripped in hatred that they turned over and over, each strangling each, each crushing the other, as best he could.
By great good fortune, the neighbours ran in while it was time, and separated them.
Antek was hustled away to the other lodgings, and water dashed over him; he was faint with exhaustion caused by loss of blood, for the glass had gashed him very deep.
The old man had no hurt at all; only a slight tear in the short jacket he wore, and a few scratches on his face, that was livid with rage. … He swore at the folk who had come, shut the front door on them, and sat down by the fire.
But nothing could avail to calm him.
He could not put out of his memory the words uttered about Yagna: they stabbed him like a knife.
“That hound! I will never forgive him, never!” was the oath he then swore to himself. “My Yagna! how could he?”—But then he recalled what he had heard said of her in former times and disregarded. He turned hot, he felt as if he were choking, and a wretched sense of dejection came over him. How, if his own son said such things, were people’s mouths to be stopped? Oh, that villain! The very recollection of those words burned him like fire.
After Yuzka had cleaned away all the traces of the struggle, and given him his supper, though late, he attempted to eat, but could not, and laid his spoon down. “Have you given the horses their provender?” he inquired of Kuba.
“Of course.”
“Vitek—where is he?”
“Gone for Ambrose, to see to Antek’s head. His face is swollen like a pipkin,” he added, hurrying out; for he had chosen this moonlight night to go out shooting.
“ ‘When dogs have too much bread, each flies at t’other’s head,’ ” he grunted.
The old man stumped down into the village, but refrained from visiting Yagna, though the light was gleaming bright from her window. He turned away just outside her door, and went round to the mill. It was a chilly star-besprinkled night, and so clear that the whole millpond shone like glittering quicksilver. Over the deserted roads the trees cast long swaying shadows. It was late; they were putting the lights out in the houses, whose whitewashed walls now stood out more distinctly among the skeleton orchard trees. Silence and darkness had swallowed up all the hamlet: only the mill-wheel and the water clattered and babbled monotonously. Matthias walked on, crossing to the other side. As he went, his anger grew stronger, together with his hatred. When he got to the tavern, he sent for the Voyt, and they both drank till midnight. He could not, however, drown the gnawing pain within him. Only he then registered a resolve.
No sooner had he risen the next morning than he went round to the other lodgings. Antek was in bed, his face bandaged with a bloodstained rag.
“Get out of my home this instant!” he said, “and let no trace of you remain! If you want war, if you will go to law, then do so; bring an action, and get back your property! What you have sown of your own grain, you may reap, when summer comes. And now, away with you! Let me set eyes on you no more! Do you hear?” he roared. Antek set about dressing slowly.
“By noon, you will have to be off!” he added, calling out to them from the passage.
Antek remained as dumb as though he had not heard.
“Yuzka, call Kuba: let him put the mare to the cart, and take them whither they want to go!”
“But there is something the matter with Kuba. He lies groaning on his pallet, and says he cannot rise at all, his lame leg hurts him so.”
“A sluggard, who only wants to lie abed!” And Boryna saw to the farm-duties by himself.
Kuba nevertheless was seriously ill, but would not say what the matter was with him, though pressed by his master. As he lay, he uttered such groans that the horses came up to him, sniffed at his face and licked it, while Vitek brought him water in a pail, and secretly washed certain blood-smirched rags in the river.
Boryna, intent as he was on the departure of Antek and his family, noticed nothing of all this.
They departed.
Without clamour or disturbance, they packed everything, carried their belongings out, and made up their bundles; Hanka well-nigh swooning with distress; Antek refreshing her with drinks of water and hurrying her on, that they might be away—out of that father’s house—as quickly as ever they could.
He would take no horse from his father, but borrowed one from Klemba, and took everything over to Hanka’s parent, at the very end of the village and beyond the tavern.
Several peasants had come in from the hamlet, along with Roch as their leader, desirous of reconciling them; but to this neither father nor son would agree.
“No,” said the old man; “let him try how he will enjoy his freedom, and bread of his own!”
Antek answered no word to their solicitations; but, lifting his fist, he uttered such horrible maledictions that Roch turned pale and withdrew amongst the women, who were in numbers about the premises; partly to assist Hanka, but for the most part to air grievances aloud, and babble, and give advice.
When Yuzka, all in tears, gave dinner to her father and Roch, her brother and his family were off the place, together with all they had. Antek never even looked back at his hut; he only crossed himself, heaving a deep sigh; and whipping up the horse, put his shoulder to the cart, it being very heavily laden. He went plodding along, his face white, his eyes blazing with stubborn resolve, his teeth chattering as one in an ague: but never said one word. Hanka walked languidly after the cart, her elder son holding to her skirt and roaring, her younger one clasped to her bosom. Before them she drove a cow, a flock of geese, and two lean swine: and her voice was so loud in imprecations and mourning that folk came out of their houses, and followed her as in procession.
At Boryna’s, the meal was eaten in sombre silence.
The old dog Lapa barked in the porch, ran after the cart, returned and howled. Vitek called it; but it paid no heed. It smelt the farmyard, entered Antek’s empty rooms, ran round them one or twice, rushed into the passage, barked again, whined, fawned on Yuzka, and again tore about as though distracted: then it sat down on its hind quarters with a strange air of imbecility—and finally made off, with its tail between its legs, on Antek’s trail.
“Even Lapa has gone after them!”
“Do not fear, Yuzka,” her father answered tenderly; “Lapa is coming back soon. They will have no food for him. Come, no silly puling, but prepare the other rooms: Roch is to live in them. Call Yagustynka to help you. … You must take household matters in hand now; being housekeeper, you’ll have many a care on your head. … No, no! no whimpering, dear!” He took her head in both his hands, and stroked it, and drew her caressingly to his heart.
“When I go to town, I’ll buy you a pair of shoes.”
“Oh, will you, will you, Father?”
“Yes, I will indeed, and many another thing besides. Only be a good girl, and take care of the place.”
“And will you buy me a caftan like Nastusia’s?”
“Certainly, dear, I’ll buy you one.”
“And ribbons too?—But long ones … such as I shall want for your wedding-day.”
“Say but what you need, little one, and you shall have it … all you want!”