I
Thus did Matthias Boryna die.
With dreadful yelps and howls, and leaps against the door to be let in, Lapa awoke the sleepers in the cabin, who were enjoying their Sunday rest; and then he pulled them by their clothes, and ran out a little, looking back again to see if they followed him, till Hanka took notice.
“Go, Yuzka, and see what that dog would have us do.”
She ran out after him in good spirits, skipping along the road.
He led her to her father’s body.
On beholding it, she uttered such awful shrieks that they all came out at once, and found him cold, rigid, lying on his face just as when he had passed away, his arms stretched out crosswise in a last fervent prayer.
Still attempting to revive him, they bore the body to the hut.
All their endeavours were fruitless: what lay before them was a corpse, and nothing more.
A bitter lamentation rose up: Hanka rent the air with cries; Yuzka cried not less wildly, and dashed her head against the wall; Vitek and the little ones wailed aloud, and Lapa howled and barked outside. Pete alone, who had been coming and going about the yard, glanced at the sun, and went back to his bed in the stable.
Matthias now lay on his couch, stiff and stark, as lifeless as a sun-dried earth-clod or a felled trunk. He still held a little sand fast in his clenched fist. In his wide-open eyes, gazing afar into some heavenly region, there was a look of wondering rapture.
Nevertheless, there emanated from that body an effluence of mortality so sombre, so profoundly sad, that they had to cover it with a sheet.
His death was immediately known throughout the village; and barely had the sun appeared over its roofs, when visitors came pouring in one after another, raised the sheet, looked into his eyes, and knelt down to say a prayer for him. Others, stricken with awe at this example of God’s dominion over human life, stood wringing their hands in mournful silence.
Meanwhile the mourners’ lamentations continued resounding unceasingly.
And now Ambrose came, turned away the crowd outside, closed the cabin door, and, together with Yagustynka and Agata (the latter having crept in to pray beside the body), set about rendering the last services to the deceased, which he always did willingly, and in general with plenty of witticisms; but this time he felt somehow heavy at heart.
“So much for the happiness of any man!” he muttered, as he undressed the body. “Dame Crossbones, as often as she has a mind, will clutch you by the throat, slap you in the face; and ye, turning up your toes, are borne away to the ‘Priests’ Cow-byre’; and is there any able to resist her?”
Even Yagustynka was grieved, and said, in no merry mood: “Poor man! they neglected him so in this world that ’twas better for him to die!”
“Indeed? And who, then, did him any harm?”
“Nay, were they so very good to him?”
“And who on earth has all to his liking? Why, even a squire, even a king, must suffer trouble and pain.”
“He had not to bear either hunger or cold: we can say no more.”
“Ah, good Mother, what is hunger? The heartache gnaws far worse.”
“True. I have felt it. And Yagna cut him to the heart: nor did his own children spare him.”
“But,” Agata put in, interrupting the prayers she was saying, “he had children that were good, and did him no wrong.”
Yagustynka turned snappishly upon her. “Say your prayers, you! ye were best. What? will she drone dirges for the dead man, and listen all the time to the talk?”
“Well, but if his children were bad, would they mourn for him so? Only hark to them!”
“Had he but left you so much, ye would move heaven and earth with your lamentations!”
Here Ambrose interfered. “Be quiet,” he said; “here comes Yagna.”
She rushed in, but stood transfixed in the middle of the room, unable to speak.
They were then attiring the body in a clean shirt.
“What! … gone?” she said at last, with eyes fixed on him. Fear was gripping at her throat and her heart; her blood ran cold and she could scarcely breathe.
“Did they not tell you?” Ambrose inquired.
“I was asleep at Mother’s: Vitek came to call me but now.—Is he dead truly and indeed?” she asked suddenly, approaching him.
“Surely ’tis for a coffin, not for a wedding, that I am attiring him.”
She could not make it out, and staggered up against the wall; she fancied herself in a deep sleep, the prey of some nightmare.
Several times she quitted the room, but always returned: to keep her eyes away from the body was impossible. Now and again she would start up to go out, and yet stayed on; at times she went out as far as the stile, and looked far across the fields with unseeing gaze; or she would seat herself outside, but close to the room and to Yuzka, who was weeping, tearing her hair, and forever crying:
“Oh my father, my lost father! lost!”
There was great wailing and sobbing, not only in, but also around, the cabin. Of the mourners, Yagna alone, though quaking in every limb, and stirred to the inmost depths of her being, could not shed one tear, could not utter one cry. She only walked to and fro with eyes gloomily bright, with an expression of stern awe.
It was a good thing that Hanka presently recovered herself and, though tearful yet, was able to see to everything, and felt quite calm on the arrival of the blacksmith and his wife.
Magda wept; the smith asked for particulars, which Hanka gave him.
“ ’Tis well that the Lord Jesus has sent him so easy a death!”
“Poor man! Running out afield to flee Dame Crossbones’ embrace!”
“Yestereve I went to look at him; he was as quiet as usual.”
“And did he not speak? Not a word?” the smith asked, wiping tearless eyes.
“Not a word. So I pulled the down covering over him, gave him to drink, and came away.”
“What? and so he got up alone! Peradventure, then, he might not have died, had any been there to watch over him,” said Magda, between her sobs.
“Yagna was sleeping at her mother’s. She always does so, now the old dame is so very ill.”
“It was to be!—And it has been!” said the blacksmith. “These three months and over he has been a-dying. Whoso cannot be healed, better let him die quickly. Let us thank the Lord God that he suffers no longer.”
“Aye, and well ye know how much the physicians and medicines cost us in the first days … and all to no purpose.”
“Ah!” Magda lamented; “how good a farmer he was! how able a man!”
“What grieves me is that Antek should not find him alive, when he comes back.”
“He is no child, nor likely to weep on that account.—Rather bethink yourself of the funeral.”
“True, true.—Oh, what a pity that Roch is away just now!”
“We can do without him. Be not troubled: I will see to all,” the smith replied.
He showed a sorrowful face, but was evidently masking some hidden thought as he set to help Ambrose to fold up the dead man’s clothes. For a long time he ferreted in the storeroom amongst hanks of spun wool and odds and ends; then he went up the ladder—for the boots which hung there, he said. The fellow panted as loud as a pair of bellows, pattered prayers for the dead man louder than Agata, and was continually recalling the good actions of the deceased. But his eyes were meanwhile wandering about the room, and his hands gliding about under the pillows, or groping in the straw of the mattress.
At length Yagustynka said tartly: “Are ye looking for aught in particular?”
“One cannot find, unless one seeks!” he answered. And then he began to search quite openly; nor did the arrival of Michael from the organist’s, in hot haste for Ambrose, hinder him in the least.
“Come at once, Ambrose: four babies wait in church to be christened.”
“Let them wait; I must first of all get him neat and tidy.”
“Nay, ye had better go, Ambrose,” said the smith, who wanted to get rid of him.
“What I have offered to do, I will do. I shall not soon lay out such another as he. Take my place in church, Michael,” he added, turning to the lad, “and let the godfathers and godmothers go round the altar with lighted tapers: they will drop you kopeks in plenty.—What!” disparagingly; “ye are to be an organist, yet cannot serve at a simple christening?”
Hanka now brought in Matthew, to measure Boryna for his coffin.
“Do not grudge him room in this last dwelling of his,” said Ambrose, in a sad tone; “let the poor man have some comfort, at least after death!”
“Lord, Lord!” Yagustynka whispered; “when he lived, he had not enough with all his many acres; and now four boards will suffice him amply!”
Agata, interrupting her prayers, here faltered tearfully:
“He was a landowner, and shall be buried as such; but some poor creatures know not under which hedge they are to die. … May light perpetual shine upon you! May—” And here she broke down again.
Matthew said nothing, but nodded, and after taking the measure, said a prayer and went out. Though it was Sunday, he set to work directly. All the necessary tools were in the hut, and some seasoned oaken planks that had long been in readiness lay upstairs. He had presently set up his workshop in the orchard, and was hard at work—and making Pete, who had been told to assist him, work hard too.
The day had dawned long ago, and the sun was shining with jocund burning rays. It had been quite hot ever since breakfast-time; all the fields and orchards were being slowly plunged in a vapour-bath of whitish simmering air.
In some places, the languishing trees stirred their leaves, as birds overwhelmed by heat might flutter their wings. The lull of the day of rest had pervaded all the village; nothing moved but the swallows darting over the pond, and the carts bearing people to church from some neighbouring hamlet, with clouds of dust in their wake. … Every now and then one of them stopped in front of Boryna’s, where the disconsolate family were sitting, to greet them and sigh heavily, looking in through the open windows and door.
Ambrose made good speed, and hastened the preparations: soon the bed was out in the orchard, and the bedding spread on the hedge to air; and now he called upon Hanka to bring him juniper-berries to fumigate the mortuary chamber.
But just then she heard nothing. She had wiped the last tears from her eyes, and was looking down the road, in the hope that she might at any moment see her Antek.
But, as the hours passed, and he did not come, she wanted to send Pete to town for news of him.
“Nay,” objected Bylitsa, who had just come in from Veronka’s hut; “he will bring no news and only tire the horse.”
“But they must know something at the police bureau.”
“No doubt; but it is closed on Sundays. Besides, they will tell you naught, if their palms be not greased.”
“Alas!” she complained to her sister, “I can bear this no longer.”
“Oh, he will yet be a thorn in your side,” hissed the blacksmith, darting a glance at Yagna, who was sitting under the eaves. And, his fruitless search for the money having stirred his bile, he added spitefully: “His legs must be stiff with the irons he wore; how, then, can he make haste home?”
She replied nothing, and went to look out upon the road again.
As the Mass-bells were ringing, Ambrose made for the church after ordering Vitek to grease the dead man’s boots well, for they had got so dry that they could not be put on him.
The smith, together with Matthew, went off to the village; and now there remained no one in the cabin but the women and Vitek, busily greasing the boots, softening them over the fire, and at times casting a look in the direction of Yuzka, whose sobs were growing fainter.
There was now no movement at all upon the road, the people being in church; nor was anything to be heard in Boryna’s cabin but the voice of Agata within, saying the litany for the dead. It rose up like the chirruping of a bird, along with the volumes of juniper smoke, with which Yagustynka was perfuming the hut and the passage.
They heard the service begin. Audible in the noonday hush, the chants wafted from the church, and the sound of the organ came to them in high-pitched undulations, pleasant and remote.
Hanka could find no rest within doors, so she went to the stile, to get through her prayers there.
“Dead, dead, dead!” she thought, as the beads slipped slow through her fingers—But she prayed with her lips only; her brain, her heart, were full of manifold puzzling thoughts, and not a few misgivings.
“Thirty-two acres. Also pastures. And a bit of forest. And the outhouses, and the live stock!” She sighed and cast a look of affection on the broad acres before her.
“If we could but pay them off, and keep all the land together!—And be just what his father has been!”
Pride and ambition filled her heart; she gazed sunwards, smiled fearlessly, and went on telling her beads, her bosom swelling with agreeable hopes.
“No, I will not give up even half the land. Half the cabin is mine, too. Nor shall the others get a single one of my milch-kine!”
She went on very long in this way, saying her prayers, flinging tearful glances over those lands, clad with sunshine, as if it were a tissue of gold, where the rye, in its growing luxuriance, waved its rusty-red drooping ears; where the darker barley-patches stood shining in the light, glossy and shimmering; where the bright green oats, thickly sprinkled with yellow-flowering weeds, stirred and quivered in the parching heat; where over the blossoming clover that lay spread out on the hill-slope, like a bloodred kerchief, a great bird was hovering, balanced on its outstretched wings, and where the broad beans stood, with their thousands of snowy flowers, keeping watch and ward over the young potato-plants, and a few plots of flax in the hollows gleamed blue with delicate flowers—childlike eyes that seemed blinking in the glare.
All was so wondrously beautiful! The sun grew hotter and hotter meanwhile; and the warm breeze, laden with the scents of the blossoms that glowed in countless numbers, breathed from the fields with delicious life-giving might, dilating the souls of men.
“O native soil, O holy soil, most holy!” she said, bending down to kiss it.
She heard the church-bells tinkling, twittering in the air.
“O my dear Jesus! all’s for Thee—yea, all things in the world!” she murmured fervently, and again betook herself to prayer.
But close to her she heard a rustling noise, and looked around her cautiously. Beneath the cherry-trees, leaning against the trellised fence, Yagna stood, absorbed in unpleasant thought.
“What, never one moment of peace!” Hanka complained; for, at the sight of her, sharp memories arose—sharp as stinging nettles.
“Yes, there’s the donation made to her. ’Tis a fact! Aye, six whole acres! Oh, that thief!” She turned her back upon her, but could not take up her prayers again. Like hounds that not only barked but bit deep, the wrongs and outrages of former days came back and beset her.
Noon had passed; the shrunken shadows were beginning to creep out once more from under the trees and the houses. In the corn which bent slightly towards the sunbeams, the grasshoppers played their faint shrill music, a beetle hummed by at intervals, or a quail piped. And the weather was all the time growing more and more intolerably hot.
High Mass was now ended, and the women came out of church to take off their shoes by the pond, and there was no more solitude for Hanka; the roads swarmed so with men and wagons that she went home.
Boryna was at last lying in state.
In the middle of the room he lay, on a wide bench, with a cloth over it and burning tapers around. He had been washed, combed, and clean-shaved, but his cheek bore a deep gash from Ambrose’s razor, which a bit of paper concealed. He was arrayed in his very best clothes: the white capote that had been made for his wedding with Yagna, striped breeches, and all but quite new boots. In his overworked withered hands he held the image of Our Lady of Chenstohova.
A large barrel of water stood by to keep the air cool; and upon earthenware tiles there lay juniper-berries, smouldering and exhaling their aromatic smoke, that filled the whole cabin with a bluish haze, through which the awful majesty of death was mistily visible.
So lay, then, in silent state, the body of Matthias Boryna, an upright and an able man, a thorough Christian, a farmer and the son and descendant of farmers—the foremost man in Lipka.
He was in readiness, about to depart, to bid farewell to his kinsfolk and all that knew him, and set out on the Great Journey!
His soul had already passed before the Judgment-seat: it was but his worn-out body, the empty shell his soul had once inhabited, that lay there, feebly smiling, amongst lights and smoke-wreaths and unceasing prayers.
In came the people then, in an interminable procession, sighing, beating their breasts, musing profoundly, or weeping; and the sounds of their stifled sobs and faint whispers was like the pattering of autumnal rain. They came and went without end: all Lipka came, rich and poor, young and old, men and women.
In spite of the magnificent weather, his death made the whole village gloomy and wretched; everyone was in deep sadness, everyone greatly given to moralize over “the unhappy fate of mortal man.”
Many of the dead man’s friends lingered about the hut, and some of the goodwives remained to attempt consoling Hanka and Magda and Yuzka in words of homely comfort, condoling and weeping heartily along with them.
To Yagna nobody said one word. Though indeed she cared little for their pity, she felt nevertheless pained at being so pointedly left alone; so she went out into the garden, where she sat listening to Matthew at work hammering the coffin.
“That creature!” the Voyt’s wife hissed after her. “To dare show her face at all!”
“Oh, let her be!” said another; “it is no time now to think of her misdeeds.”
“Aye, leave them to the Lord Jesus, who will judge them hereafter,” Hanka added mercifully.
“And for the bitter things ye say, the Voyt will reward her abundantly,” the smith remarked, with a sneer, and went away, the miller having sent for him. Luckily; for the goodwife was swelling with rage like a turkey, and ready to fly out at him.
He broke into a croaking laugh, and hurried off. The others lingered on to talk, but the talk flagged, partly through their sorrow, partly on account of the intense heat. It was indeed so hot that all the flowers and plants were fading, and the walls shedding tears of resin.
Of a sudden a bellow, long-drawn and plaintive, was heard, and a peasant, driving a cow, passed by on the farther side of the pond.
He pulled her hard by the rope, while they looked on in dull silence.
“Taking her to the priest’s bull, I suppose,” Yagustynka said; but no one took any interest in her remark.
The bells rang for Vespers and they took leave of Hanka, who then sent Vitek to ask the smith to go with her and arrange with the priest for the funeral expenses. He presently returned, saying that the smith was in conference with the Squire and the miller, and taking afternoon tea together; his stallions were outside, pawing the ground in the shade.
“He with the Squire!—How strange!” But she could not wait, and accompanied by Magda, dressed in her best, she went to the priest’s house.
He was in the farmyard, and sent them word he would see them there.
He sat in the shade, close to the fence. In the middle of the yard, not far from a rather fine cow that a peasant held fast with a rope, a powerful dappled bull was turning round and round her, kept back with difficulty by the priest’s farm-servant, pulling at the end of his chain.
“Valek! Just wait a little: he is not ready yet,” the priest called out. Then, mopping his bald head, he called the women to him, and asked about Boryna’s death, and consoled and comforted them with the greatest kindness. But when they inquired about the funeral fees, he stopped them short, saying impatiently:
“Of those things later. I am no extortioner. Matthias was the biggest farmer in the village; he cannot have a mean funeral. No, I tell you, he cannot,” he repeated fiercely, as was his way.
They embraced his feet, not venturing to insist.
“Ah!” he cried suddenly. “You little blackguards! I’ll give it you! Look at them, those bad boys!” He was addressing the organist’s sons, peeping surreptitiously over the hedge.—“Well, and what think ye of my bull, hey?”
“A splendid beast!” Hanka replied. “Finer than the miller’s.”
“The two differ as much as a bull differs from a wagon! Only look at him!” And he came nearer with them, and patted the flanks of the animal, that now was approaching closer to the cow.
“Oh, what a neck! what a back! what a splendid chest! what a dewlap!” he cried, breathless with enthusiasm. “Why, ’tis no bull, ’tis a bison!”
“Indeed, I never saw so fine a one.”
“No, ye never did. It is a thoroughbred Hollander. Cost me three hundred roubles.”
“So great a sum as that?” they exclaimed in amazement.
“Not one kopek less. Valek, let him go … but cautiously now; the cow is but a puny thing.—She will be mated in an instant. … Aye, the bull is exceeding dear. But then the Lipka folk—if they want to have a breed of first-rate kine, will have to pay not less than one rouble, and ten kopeks for my man besides!—The miller is wroth, but I was disgusted with the miserable beasts his bull is accountable for.—Now then, run away!” he said, noticing that the women averted their faces with shame. As they went, he called after them: “Tomorrow we bring the body to the church!” and set to helping the peasant, who had much ado to hold his cow.
“You’ll very soon thank me for a calf such as you did never yet see in your life.—Valek, take him away to rest awhile. Though indeed he can scarcely be in need of any rest at all. … Such a trifle!” he boasted.
The women had repaired to the organist’s, because they had to make a separate agreement with him. And as they had to take coffee there, and talk for some time afterwards, the cattle were coming home when they returned to their huts.
Mr. Yacek puffed at his pipe, standing in the porch with Matthew, whom he tried to engage to build Staho’s hut, but who seemed hardly pleased at the offer, and would say nothing definitive.
“As to cutting up the timber, that’s no great affair; but as to building the hut. … Do I know? I have enough of the country and may be going somewhere far away.—No, I cannot say for sure.” As he spoke thus, he glanced at Yagna, who was milking her cow outside the byre.
“Well, well, I shall finish the coffin tomorrow morning, and then we may talk the matter over,” he concluded, and hurried away.
Mr. Yacek, entering the room where Boryna lay, prayed for him long and fervently, wiping away many a tear. He said to Hanka afterwards: “May his sons but resemble him! He was a good man, a true Pole; was with us in the insurrection; came of his own accord, and did not spare his blows: I have seen him in action. Alas! it is through us he has perished! … There’s a curse upon us,” he added, as if speaking to himself. Though Hanka could not make out well all he said, yet his words were so full of kindness that she fell at his feet and embraced them out of gratitude.
“Never do that!” he exclaimed angrily. “What am I more than one amongst you?”
Once more he cast a look at Boryna, lit his pipe at the taper, and left the place, without answering the salutations of the blacksmith, just then entering the passage.
“What, so proud today?” the smith cried; but as he was in good spirits this vexed him but little. Seating himself by his wife’s side, he talked to her very low:
“You must know, Magda, that the Squire is seeking to come to terms with our village—and looks for me to help him. Of course I shall make a good thing of it. But mum! not a whisper of this, wife of mine: ’tis a big affair.”
And he went off to the tavern, inviting men to come there and confer with him.
Along the western horizon the sky looked like a sheet of rusted iron, but a few clouds still glowed above in golden light.
When all the evening duties had been done, the people assembled around the dead body. More and more tapers were lit about Boryna’s head; Ambrose snuffed the wicks again and again, and chanted out of a book; and all present joined in the responses, weeping and lamenting one after another.
The neighbours came too, but, as it was very close within, stayed outside, droning out the long sorrowful notes of the Litany as they knelt.
This continued till late at night, when they retired, leaving only Ambrose and Agata to watch the body till morning.
This they did, at first chanting in a loud voice. But when all noise and movement around had ceased, they felt drowsy, and even Lapa, coming in and licking the grease off his master’s boots, failed to wake them up.
About midnight, all became extremely dark, not a single star shone. Withal, there was a deep dead stillness, unbroken save by the faint whispering of a tree, or some eerie far-off sound—neither a shout, nor a crash, nor a call—remote and fading away in the distance.
No house in Lipka had any light at all now, save Boryna’s, with the pallid illumination of the tapers, and the dead body just visible in the yellow flames, only blurred by the smoke of the perfumes, and seen as in a cloud of bluish fog. But Ambrose and Agata, with their heads pressed against the body, were both sound asleep and snoring loud.
The short summer night was soon over, as if hurrying to depart before the first cockcrow. One after another, all the tapers went out except the largest, which still sent up its long waving flame, like a blade of gold.
At last the grey mist-clad dawn looked into the room and into Boryna’s face, who seemed somehow to have awaked from his heavy sleep, and to be listening to the first twitterings of the nestling birds, and through discoloured lids eyeing the still remote daybreak.
Now the millpond sighed, with drowsy undulations; now the forest began to loom out darkly, looking like a range of black earth-hugging clouds, as the fading night grew phosphorescent, and the trees scattered here and there stood out distinct like tufts of swarthy plumes on the brightening skyline, while the first morning breeze sprang up, playing with the orchard trees and murmuring in the ears of the sleepers outside the huts.
Few, however, opened their eyes as yet, being somewhat languid, as is usual after Sunday or a fair.
Then came the day, misty before sunrise, but with the lark chanting his matins, the waters bubbling their joyful carol, the corn giving forth its melodious many-sounding voices; and presently with the plaintive bleating of the sheep, the screaming of the geese, human calls resounding, gates creaking, horses neighing, and all the bustle and movement of those rising to their daily work. But everything was still and quiet yet in Boryna’s hut.
They were sleeping, overcome by the grief that had wrung their hearts so sorely.
In came the wind through open windows and doors, whistling and blowing the old man’s hair about, and tossing the flame of the last taper in every direction.
And he lay still as a stone, no longer ready to rush to work himself, nor to urge others to toil: deaf to every call how forevermore!
The wind was rising higher, streaming through the orchard with great force, making the trees shake and rustle and sway and toss, and seem peeping in through the windows at Boryna’s ashen face. So did the tall slender hollyhocks, bending and bowing at the windows, not unlike red-cheeked country lasses. Now and then a bee from the Manor hives looked in, or a butterfly, glancing in the light; a swallow would dart in and out with a hesitating twitter; and flies and cockchafers, and every kind of living creatures came likewise: so that the room was filled with a quiet buzz and drone and whirring hum—the voices of all these things, repeating:
“Dead—dead—he is dead!”
The sun rose—a huge red-hot globe, stilling all those voices; and then it suddenly veiled its glorious all-powerful and life-giving face, now hidden behind dense-volumed vapours.
The world grew grey; in a minute it began to rain abundantly in warm tiny drops, and soon their fall was heard through every field and orchard, pattering continually.
The roads cooled and exhaled the peculiar smell of rain; the birds sang loud and lustily to welcome it; the world was bathed in its greyish tremulous spray; and the thirsty cornfields, and the shrivelling leaves, and the trees, and the rills with their dry parched throats, and the baked clods of earth—all drank deep and heartily, uttering, as it were, a silent thanksgiving.
“Thanks, Brother Rain! Thanks, Sister Cloud! We all thank you!”
Hanka, who slept by the open window, was waked first by the rain driving in her face, and ran at once to the stable.
“Up, Pete! the rain has come—Run and heap the clover in cocks—quick, or it will mowburn and rot!—And you, Vitek, lazy boy! drive our kine afield.—All the other folk’s kine are out by now.”—As she spoke, she let the geese out of the fowl-house, and they hastened to splash joyfully in the pools of water.
While she was thus engaged, the smith came, and they settled together what would have to be purchased in town for the funeral feast next day. He took the money; but on starting in his britzka, he called her and whispered:
“Hanka, let me have one-half, and I’ll never breathe a word about your robbing the old man!”
She flushed red as a beetroot, and cried out in a passion:
“Say what ye will, and to the whole world!—Look at that man! He thinks that all are like himself!”
He glared at her, pulled at his moustache, and drove off.
Hanka was very busy indeed, and her voice was soon heard giving orders everywhere.
Two fresh tapers having been lit at Boryna’s side, a sheet was spread over the body. Agata went on praying, and every now and then putting more juniper-berries on the hot coals.
After breakfast, Yagna came from her mother’s, but was so frightened of the dead man that she never went in, and only wandered outside, watching Matthew as he worked at the coffin. He had done hammering now, and was just painting a white cross upon the top, when he saw her at the stable-door, silent and looking upon the black coffin-lid with a great sinking at heart.
“Yagna!” he whispered compassionately, “you’re a widow now—a widow!”
“Yes, yes, I am!” she returned in a sad subdued voice.
He felt much pity for her; so worn, and pale, and unhappy-looking, and like a child that has been ill-used.
“ ’Tis the common lot!” he told her, gravely.
“A widow! a widow!” she repeated. Tears welled up to her dark-blue eyes; a deep sigh burst from her bosom. She ran out into the rain and wept there so plentifully that Hanka came to bring her within doors.
“Of what use is weeping? We too have much to bear. But to you, forlorn one, it is in truth a still greater blow,” she said kindly.
Yagustynka, always the same, here observed:
“Weep away! But ere the year be out, I’ll sing you such a new wedding-song as will make you dance like mad.”
“Such jests are ill-timed now!” Hanka said reproachfully.
“I say true; ’tis no jest! Why, is she not wealthy and lovely and young? She will need a stout stick to keep the men away from her!”
Hanka, going out to take the pigs their wash, looked along the road.
“What,” she thought with misgiving, “can the matter be? He was to be set free on Saturday: it is Monday now, and there’s no news of him!”
But she had no time for brooding. Her assistance was wanted to make the rest of the hay and all the clover just mown into cocks, for the rain never left off, and was falling in torrents.
In the evening, the priest came with the organist and the Confraternity, bearing lighted tapers, to lay Boryna in his coffin. Matthew nailed it down, the priest recited some prayers, sprinkled holy water over it, and it was taken to church in procession, Ambrose tolling the funeral bell the while.
How empty, how fearfully quiet the hut seemed on their return! Yuzka quite broke down. Hanka said:
“He was just like a corpse for so many a day, yet we felt there was a master amongst us!”
“But Antek will come,” Yagustynka assured her, “and there will then be another master!”
“Would it were soon!” she sighed.
But as in this rainy weather there was a great deal of work to do, she dashed her tears away. “Come, good people!” she cried. “Should the greatest man in the world die, he is like a stone in the depths of the sea—never to be fished up again; and the land will not wait, and we must toil and till it.”
Then she took them all to earth up the potato-plants, Yuzka alone staying at home to take care of the babies, and because the sorrow, which she had not yet got over, had made her ill. Lapa was constantly by her side, watching over her, and also Vitek’s stork, that stood on one leg in the porch, as if on guard.
When the downpour, heavy and warm as it was, had lasted for some time, the birds ceased from singing, and all the beasts listened in silence to the purl and gurgle and drumming of the torrential rain. Only the geese made a riotous noise, swimming merrily about in the frothy pools.
“Tomorrow we shall surely have fine weather,” people said, on coming back from the fields, seeing the sun shine bright at evening, and peer out with his fiery eye over the countryside.
“Would it might still rain tomorrow! it will be worth much gold to us!”
“Aye, our potatoes were all but destroyed.”
“And how dried up the oats were!”
“Things will look better now.”
“If it could but rain for three days running!”
And so on.
It had kept pouring steadily till nightfall, and the peasants had the pleasure of standing outside their huts to breathe the cool and deliciously fragrant air. Meanwhile the Gulbas lads were urging all the boys and girls to sally forth and kindle the “Sobotki” fires on a neighbouring eminence. But the weather was far from pleasant, and only a few bonfires gleamed that evening along the skirts of the forest.
Vitek wished very much for Yuzka to go with him to the Sobotki. But she said: “No, I will not. What care I for amusements now … or for anything in the world?”
Still he pressed her to go. “We will only light a bonfire, leap over it … and come home again.”
“No! And you too shall stay at home: else Hanka shall know of it,” she said, threatening him.
He went notwithstanding—and came back too late for supper, famished, and most shockingly bespattered with mud; for the rain had been falling all the time. Indeed, it only gave over the next day, at the time of the funeral service.
Even then the weather was cloudy and foggy, setting off still better the bright green of the fields, threaded with silver brooklets everywhere. It was fresh, cool, pleasant: the lands, all drenched and soaked, seemed fermenting with intense life.
A votive Requiem Mass was celebrated by the parish priest, who afterwards, in company with his Reverence of Slupia, and the organist, seated in pews on either side of the sanctuary, chanted the Officium Defunctorum in Latin. High on a catafalque lay Boryna, amid a grove of burning tapers. Around him the whole village knelt humbly, praying and giving ear to the long-drawn, melancholy dirge, that now sounded like a cry of terror, making their flesh creep and wringing their hearts; now gave out subdued murmuring syllables, low thrilling moans, that caused the tears to start unwilled; and now again would soar on high in unearthly rapture, like the hymns of angels in everlasting bliss; and the hearers would wipe away their tears, or burst into uncontrollable fits of weeping.
This lasted a full hour. At last Ambrose took the tapers out of their sockets to distribute them amongst the congregation; and the priest, having prayed before the body, gone round it, swinging his silver thurible until all the air around was blue with incense-smoke, and sprinkled it with holy water, walked forward to the door, the cross preceding him.
Then was there within the church a confused din of cries and wailing and sobbing, as several husbandmen of the highest standing, shouldering the coffin, bore it to the cart outside, the basketwork of which was crammed with straw. Yagustynka (furtively, lest the priests should see and prevent this superstitious act) thrust under it a big loaf, wrapped up in clean linen.
The dismal knell burst forth, the black banners were raised and the lights flared and flickered. Staho having lifted the cross, the two priests intoned:
“Miserere mei, Deus. …”
The dread strains, the chant of death—the dirge of infinite sorrow—began to sob forth, and they wended their way towards the burying-ground.
In front of the procession, the black flag bearing the skull and crossbones, fluttered like a bird of horror: following in its wake came the silver cross, a long line of taper-bearers, and the priests, arrayed in black copes.
Then appeared the coffin, high in view, and the loudly lamenting mourners, and all the village in the rear, walking in sad dreary silence. Even the sick and the crippled had come.
The grey clouds hung low in the sky, almost resting on the tops of the poplars, and motionless, as if intent on the chants that were sung. When a breeze arose, the trees shed their tears over the coffin, while the corn in the fields bent low as though to salute their master, leaving them forever.
Floating through the air with the voices of the groaning bells, the dirge rolled a stillness as of death on the hearts of the listeners; while the mourners wailed, and the banners flapped, and the cartwheels creaked—and the lark sang, far away in the fields.
And once again the Miserere resounded, with a magical effect on the feelings of those present.
Their hearts were as dying within them; their eyes strayed over the land and up to the grey sky, begging for mercy. Their faces had grown pale with the strain on their emotions; trembling had taken hold of them; and more than one whispered his prayers out of livid lips, with fervent sighs and beatings of the breast, and hearty repentance of sin. And over them all loured that heavy sense of irreparable loss, and a feeling of immense woe, bringing forth most searching desolating thoughts, so that they could not but give way and mourn aloud.
They mused on the inevitable fate of man; on the fruitlessness of all his endeavours; on the utter vanity of his life, his joys, his possessions, his hopes—all mere smoke, dust, illusion, nothingness!—on his folly in setting himself above any creature whatsoever—he that is a mere whiff of wind that comes none knows whence, blows none knows why, goes none knows whither; or the impossibility—were a man lord of the whole world, and enjoying all imaginable pleasures—of avoiding death: and wherefore, then, doth the soul of man drag with it this torpid body? To what purpose doth man live?
Such were the meditations of the people, as they walked in procession, gazing around upon the verdant fields with looks of sorrow unutterable, faces set hard and souls shuddering within them.
But nevertheless, they knew well that their refuge—their sole refuge—was in the infinite goodness and mercy of the Lord.
“Secundum magnam misericordiam tuam!” …
The mysterious Latin words fell upon their hearts like clods of frost-baked earth; and as they walked on, they bowed their heads instinctively to the sounds, as men must bow to the inexorable scythe of death. Now they felt absolutely resigned to all that might come—as indifferent as those rocks they saw cropping out of the fields close by them, in their hard grey strength; or the fallows and flowery meadows, and the mighty trees which may at any time be blasted by the thunderbolt, and yet which raise their heads to Heaven boldly, with a silent song of gladsome life!
Thus they traversed all the village, each one so lost in serious thoughts that he felt as if alone in a boundless desert, and seeing with his mind’s eye all his forefathers borne to the churchyard, visible through the great poplar trunks.
And now, to the dreary tolling of the bells, it came in full sight, rising out of the corn with its clumps of trees, its crosses and its graves, opening before them that terrible insatiable abyss into which all the generations were slowly dropping. Peering through the air, dim with rain, they fancied they could see coffins borne from every hut, funeral trains crawling along every road, and everybody weeping, lamenting, sobbing for the loss of some dear one, till the world was full of mourning, and drowned in bitter tears.
They were already turning off to the churchyard lane, when the Squire came up with them, got down from his carriage, and accompanied the coffin on foot—a thing of some difficulty, because the road was narrow, and planted thickly with birch-trees on either side of the surrounding cornfields.
When the priests had done chanting, Dominikova, who was led by Yagna, and walked bent down, almost blind, struck up as well as she could the psalm: “He that dwelleth … ,” which they all sang with great fervour, relieving their depressed spirits with this declaration of unbounded trust in God.
And thus they entered the burial-ground.
The foremost husbandman now carried the coffin, the Squire himself lending a hand to hold it up as they went along the yellow pathway, past grass and crosses and graves, till beyond the chapel they came to the tomb just dug amongst hazel-trees and elder-bushes.
At the sight, the wailing broke forth again, and still louder. The tomb was surrounded with banners and lights, and the people thronged with sinking hearts to gaze into that empty pit of sand.
Now the priest mounted a heap of sand thrown up, and turned round and lifted up his voice, saying to the people:
“Christian folk and men of Lipka!”
Every sound was instantly hushed, save the distant tolling of the bells, and the sobbing of Yuzka, who had put her arms round her father’s coffin and held it embraced.
The priest took snuff, wiped the tears from his eyes, and spoke thus:
“Brethren, who is it ye are burying this day? who, I ask?
“Matthias Boryna, ye will answer.
“And I will tell you, it is also your foremost husbandman, and an honest man, and a true son of the Church, that ye are now burying.
“I, who have known him this many a year, can testify how exemplary and religious his life was, how regularly he confessed and went to Communion, and how he helped the poor.
“How he helped the poor, I say,” the priest repeated with emphasis, and stopping to draw a long breath.
As he paused, the crying broke out again more loudly. And now he resumed in a sad voice:
“Poor Matthias! And he is with us no longer!
“Gone!—Taken by death, that wolf that chooses for himself the goodliest ram in the flock—in broad day, unhindered by any.
“Like the lightning that strikes a lofty tree and cleaves it in twain, so the cruel hand of death has struck him down.
“But, as Holy Scripture saith, he has not died altogether.
“For behold him, a wanderer from this earth, standing at the gate of Paradise, and knocking, and crying pitifully to be let in, till at last Saint Peter asks him:
“ ‘Who, then, art thou, and what wouldst thou have?’
“ ‘I am Boryna of Lipka; and I pray God in His mercy. …’
“ ‘What! have thy brethren tormented thee so that thou couldst live no longer?’
“ ‘I will tell thee all, Saint Peter,’ quoth Matthias; ‘but prithee set the gate ajar, that I may warm me a little in the heat of God’s mercy, for I am icy cold after my sojourn upon earth.’
“So Saint Peter set the gate ajar, but did not let him enter yet, saying:
“ ‘Now speak the truth to me, for there is none whom lies can deceive here.—Speak hardily, good soul, and say wherefor thou hast left this earth.’
“Then did Matthias drop down on his knees; for he heard the Angels singing, and the little bells ringing, as during Mass at the Elevation; and answered with tears:
“ ‘I shall speak the truth, even as in confession. Lo, I could not stay upon earth any more. Men are there like wolves to one another, and quarrels are rife, and dissensions, and sins against our Lord.
“ ‘They are not men, Saint Peter, not human creatures, but mad dogs, as it were. … Behold, they are so evil that I cannot say all the evil they do. …
“ ‘Gone is obedience, gone is honesty, gone is all mercy as well! The brother rises up against his brother, and the child against his father, and the wife against her husband, and the serving-man against his master. They respect nothing any more—neither old age, nor dignity of station, nor even the very priesthood itself.
“ ‘The Evil One now reigns in every heart; under his rule lasciviousness and drunkenness and spite now flourish daily more and more.
“ ‘Knaves, ridden by knaves whom knaves drive: such are they all!
“ ‘Trickery is everywhere, and fraud, and cruel oppression, and such thieving! Set but down what ye hold in your hand, they will snap it up at once!
“ ‘They will graze their beasts, or trample down the grass, on your very best meadow.
“ ‘If you possess but a strip of land, they will take it and plough it for their own!
“ ‘Let but a fowl run forth from your garden: they’ll instantly seize it!
“ ‘All they do is to swill vodka, commit uncleanness, and neglect God’s service. They are heathens, Christ-murderers, and the Jews their accomplices are scores of times more honest and God-fearing than they.’
“Here Saint Peter interrupted him: ‘Oh, is it thus in your parish of Lipka?’
“ ‘ ’Tis no better elsewhere perchance, but nowhere is it worse.’
“Then Saint Peter smote his hands together, and his eyes flashed. And, stretching down his fist towards the earth, he said:
“ ‘Men of Lipka, are ye then such? Such loathsome wretches, heathens worse even than Germans? Ye possess goodly fields, a fertile soil, pastures and meadow-lands, and also portions of the forest: and ’tis thus that ye demean yourselves? O knaves that ye are, waxed fat with too much bread!—Most surely will I tell our Lord of your misdeeds, and He will henceforth keep a tighter hand upon you!’
“Matthias, good man as he was, tried hard to plead for his people; but Saint Peter grew wroth, and cried out, stamping his foot:
“ ‘Say not one word in their favour: they are villains, all of them! This one thing do I tell thee: let those sons of Judas repent and do penance ere three weeks are past … or if not, I will afflict them bitterly, with hunger, and fire, and sickness; and the scoundrels shall remember me well!’ ”
The priest went on preaching in the same unsparing fashion, and dealing out menaces of God’s anger against them, with such effect that the whole congregation burst into sobs of contrition, and beat their breasts in token of repentance.
Then, after a breathing-space, he again spoke of the deceased, and pointed out how he had fallen for their sakes. And he wound up with an appeal to them all to live in concord and avoid sin, since no one knew whose turn it would be next to stand before God’s awful judgment-seat.
Even the Squire was seen to brush away a tear.
The priest went off with him, when the funeral came to a close. And as the coffin descended with a thud into the grave, and the sand began to stream down upon it with a hollow rumbling, there arose such a tempest of cries, such a din of tumultuous lamentations, as might well have softened the hardest heart.
Yuzka wept clamorously, and Magda, and Hanka, and all the relations, near or distant, and even many that were not related at all. But not less loud than the loudest rang the shrieks of Yagna, who felt something clutch and tear at her heart, and made her as one beside herself.
“Yes, yes! She is bellowing now: yet what pranks she used to play upon her husband!” someone muttered aside; and Ploshkova, wiping her eyes, remarked:
“She would fain find grace in their eyes, and not be expelled from the cabin.”
“Does she think them such fools that they can be cozened so?” was the outspoken comment of the organist’s wife.
Yagna was completely unmindful of them all. Stretched out on a mound of sand, she lay crying wildly, with a feeling as if it were she herself upon whom those heavy reverberating torrents of earth were now pouring down, for whom the bells were tolling so mournfully, and over whom the people were so sorrowfully lamenting.
They now began to disperse: some, as they went, stopping to kneel and pray for some dear departed, others wandering about the tombs in dreary meditation, and others again lingering here and there, as they saw Hanka and the smith giving invitations to the customary funeral feast.
The earth was now beaten down over the grave; a black cross had been stuck in; and all went to the cabin with the mourners in several groups, talking low, condoling with them, and at times shedding tears.
The cabin was ready for them, with tables and settles ranged along the walls; and the company, when seated, was offered bread and vodka.
They drank at first with quiet decorum, and broke a little bread. The organist read suitable prayers, and a litany was sung for the deceased, with pauses when the blacksmith went round with drinks, and Yagustynka with more bread.
The women gathered in the other apartment with Hanka, and took tea and sweet cakes; and, the organist’s wife leading off, they sang strains so plaintive and piercing that hens about the orchard began to cackle. Thus did the company eat, drink, and weep to the honoured memory of him who had died, and sing pious hymns for his soul, as befitted such an occasion and such a man.
Hanka grudged neither food nor drink, and generously pressed them all to partake. When, at noon, many of them expected to depart, a dish of kluski boiled in milk was served, followed by broiled meat with cabbage and peas.
“Other folk,” Boleslaus’ wife whispered, “have not such dainties even at their weddings.”
“True; but what a goodly inheritance he leaves them!”
“And no doubt a large hoard of ready money.”
“The blacksmith talked of its having been in the cabin—and vanished somewhere.”
“Aye, he complains, but knows full well where he has hidden it.”
The organist, who by this time was somewhat flustered, now stood up, and, glass in hand, set to extolling the late Boryna in such high-flown terms and such a wealth of Latin quotations that, little as they understood, they wept copiously, as they did at a sermon hard to make out.
The noise increased, the faces grew flushed, the glasses clinked in fine style: some were groping for these with one hand and, with the other arm round their neighbour’s neck, babbled and stammered pitiably. Some still attempted to keep up the sad tone due to such an occasion; but no one paid any heed to them. Each turned to the companions he preferred, talking with them most affectionately, and drinking to them again and again.
Ambrose alone was that day unlike his usual self. He had indeed drunk as much as any, nay, perhaps more, having taken all that he possibly could get; but he sat moping in a corner now, wiping his eyes and sighing heavily.
Some of them endeavoured to put him in a gay humour.
“Draw me not out, I am in no mood,” he growled. “I am soon going to die. To die! Over me there will be only the dogs to whine; or perhaps an old woman may clink a broken pot for me,” he mumbled, whimpering.
“Yea, I was at Matthias’ christening, and made merry at his first wedding, and buried his father. Oh, well I remember that day! O Lord! And how many others I have laid in their graves, and sounded their funeral knell. Now ’tis time for me to go!”
And getting up suddenly, he went out into the orchard. Vitek afterwards said that the old man had sat down behind the cabin and wept for ever so long.
But he was not one to trouble much about. Besides, just as twilight was at hand, the priest, accompanied by the Squire, came in unexpectedly.
His Reverence consoled the orphans, patted the childrens’ heads, and drank some tea, made for him by Yuzka; while the Squire, after some words exchanged with various people, took a glass which the smith offered him, drank to them all, and said to Hanka:
“If anyone has cause to regret Matthias, it is surely I. Were he living now, I might come to an agreement with Lipka. And perchance,” he added in a louder tone, glancing round, “I might even agree to all your demands. But with whom am I to make terms? With the Commissioner I can have naught to do, and there is no man amongst you now who can represent Lipka.”
They listened with deep attention, weighing every one of his words.
He talked on for some time, and put a few questions; but he might have spoken to a wall with as much effort. No one thought of letting his tongue run freely, or so much as opening his mouth.
They only nodded and scratched their heads, and looked at one another. … At length, seeing that he could not break down that barrier of suspicious caution, he went out along with the priest, and all the visitors saw him to the gate.
It was only afterwards that their surprise and bewilderment found tongue.
“Well, well! The Squire himself coming to a peasant’s burial!”
“He fawns on us; therefore he has need of us,” Ploshka said.
Klemba took his part. “Wherefore should he not have come as a friend?”
“Years have brought you no wisdom. When did ever a Squire come to the peasants as a friend? Say when!”
“Since he seeks an agreement, there must be something kept back.”
“Only this: that he needs it more than we do.”
“And that we are able to hold off!” cried Sikora, who was tipsy.
“Ye may be able: not all of us are!” angrily exclaimed Gregory, the Voyt’s brother.
They began to quarrel, each man airing his own view.
“Let him give up both timber and forest-land, and then we’ll come to terms.”
“We need not do so at all. There will be a sentence, and all will be ours by law.”
“Mother of dogs! let him go a-begging; ’twill serve him right!”
“Because the Jews have got hold of him, lo, he comes whining to us peasants for help!”
“And once his only cry was: ‘You peasant! get out of my way, or ’ware my horsewhip!’ ”
Here someone quite drunk cried out: “Never trust him, I tell you; he and his likes only plot the ruin of us peasants.”
Then the blacksmith shouted: “Farmers, hear my words—words of wisdom! If the Squire wants to make an agreement, make one by all means, taking what ye can get, and not seeking pears of willow-trees, as the saying is.”
Gregory seconded him strongly.
“ ’Tis God’s truth!—Come with me to the tavern, all of you, and let us talk the matter over.”
And presently they all left the premises together, accompanied (as it was late) by the gaggling of geese and lowing of herds coming back from the fields, and many a shepherd, playing on the flute.
They went along noisily, more than one screaming at the top of his voice, merely to give vent to his satisfaction after the feast and (so to speak) blow off the steam.
Meantime, at the Borynas’, when the hut had been tidied up, all was silent and dreary and eerie.
Yagna was bustling about in her own room, like a bird beating its wings in the cage: but marking how stupefied with grief all the others were, she went out and said no word to them.
The place then became still as a tomb. Supper over, and the evening household duties performed, they all felt oppressed with sleep; but no one cared to leave the big room. Sitting by the fire, they looked into the dying embers, and gave a timorous ear to every sound they heard. It was quiet outside; only the wind whistled at times, and made the trees rustle, the fences creak, and a pane jingle now and again. Or Lapa would growl, his hair stiffening all down his back with terror; and then the dull interminable stillness would once more come over them.
There they sat, shivering with ever-increasing fear, and so scared that more than one crossed himself and said his prayers with chattering teeth. All felt sure that Something was moving about, walking in the loft above, making the rafters creak, fumbling at the door, peeping in at the windows as it passed, rattling at the latch, and going round the whole cabin with a heavy tread.
On a sudden, a neighing was heard in the stable. Lapa, barking violently, flung himself against the door, while Yuzka cried out in uncontrollable anguish: “ ’Tis Father! O God! ’tis Father!” in an outburst of affrighted tears.
Thereupon Yagustynka thrust her fingers forth three times, and said gravely:
“Do not weep. Weeping only keeps a soul longer upon this earth: you would prevent him from departing in peace. Open ye the door, and let the wanderer flee away to the fields of the Lord Jesus.—May he go, and peace be with him!”
They threw the door open, and presently all was as still as death. Only reddened eyes glanced about in fear, while Lapa smelt in every corner, with a whine from time to time, and a wag of his tail, as though fawning on someone … someone unseen. They felt now, more strongly than ever, that the dead man’s soul was straying somewhere about in their midst.
At last Hanka thought of the Evening Hymn, and intoned, in a trembling husky voice:
“All our actions, done this day,
At Thy feet, O Lord, we lay!” …
which the others took up heartily, and to their great relief.