“At least stay awhile, Mr. Yanek, and warm yourself: it is so bitterly cold!”
“And,” Dominikova proposed, “perhaps you will both take a little hot milk.”
They made excuses, but at last rested themselves close to the window. Yanek was unable to take his eyes off Yagna, till she hurriedly pulled her sleeves down over her arms: at which he turned crimson like a beetroot, and fumbled in his basket for the altar-breads. He took out the finest and largest packet, in a gilt paper wrapper, and containing several coloured wafers, also shaped like altar-breads. Yagna, holding her hands under her apron, took the packet, laid it on a plate beneath the crucifix, and then brought him a good gallon measure of linseed, and six eggs.
“Have you been back here long, Mr. Yanek?”
“Only three days: since Sunday.”
“Is not that book-learning a very tedious thing?” Dominikova inquired.
“Not very; but then it is only to last till spring.”
“Your mother told me—I remember ’twas on my wedding-day—you were going to prepare for the priesthood.”
“Yes, I—I am.—After Eastertide,” he answered, in a low tone and with downcast eyes.
“Lord, what a consolation that will be to your parents! To have a priest in the family! And what an honour to the parish!”
“Have you any news?”
“None; and that is good news. Everything goes on quietly with us, as is usual amongst farmers.”
“Yagna, I should willingly have come over for your wedding, but they would not let me.”
“Oh,” Yuzka exclaimed, “what a merrymaking that was! Why, there was dancing for three days running!”
“Kuba died then, I am told.”
“Yes, he did, poor wretch! Lost so much blood, he passed away before the priest came to shrive him. They say in the village that his soul is doing penance—that there is now some creature wandering about and groaning by night along the ways and where four roads meet, and hard by crosses, waiting for God to have mercy on it. It must be Kuba’s soul: whose else?”
“What is this you say?”
“Naught but the truth. I myself have seen nothing, and so cannot swear to it. But there may be things in the world that man’s mind is unable to see through, no matter how keen. For these are the works of God, not of man.”
“I am sorry Kuba died. The priest himself wept when he told me.”
“A most upright servant he was: quiet, religious, hardworking, never taking what was not his, and always ready to share his last garment with a poor man.”
“Continual changes in Lipka. Every time I come back here, I find things quite altered.—I was at Antek’s today. His children are ill, misery is knocking at their door, and he himself is so changed, so thin, I hardly knew him.”
To these words there was no answer. Yagna quickly turned her face away, and set about putting the loaves on the shovel, whilst her mother darted him such a glance that he felt he had touched on an unpleasant subject. With a wish to mend matters, he was seeking to start another, when Yuzka addressed him with a blush, and asked for some of his coloured wafers.
“I want them for the ‘globes’ we hang up. We had some from last year, but they were quite spoiled in the racket of the wedding-feast.”
Certainly he would; and he gave her more than a dozen, of five different tints.
“So many! O Lord! I shall have enough to make not only ‘globes,’ but ‘moons’ too, and ‘stars’!” she cried in great glee. Yagna whispered to her, and she came, blushing, her apron over her face, to offer him six more eggs in return for his gift.
Boryna had meanwhile returned, and came in, Lapa and Bociek following him, along with Vitek.
“Shut the door this instant,” cried Dominikova, “or the cakes will get cold!”
“When women set to putting things in order,” Boryna said jocosely, as he warmed his freezing hands, “men must seek lodgings, even at the tavern. The road was like glass, the sledge ran splendidly, but it was so cold we were nearly frozen in our seats.—Yagna, give Pete something to eat. He has been nigh freezing to the marrow in his soldier’s greatcoat.—Tell me, Yanek, are you home for long?”
“Till Twelfth Night.”
“You must be a great help to your father, both at the organ and in his office. It is so cold, he can hardly wish to leave his warm bed, now that he is getting on in years!”
“But that’s not why he did not come to you himself: our cow has calved today, and he is forced to stay and tend her.”
“That’s good for you: you will have milk all the winter through.”
“How now, Vitek, have you watered the colt?”
“I have myself,” said Yagna, “but it would not drink at all, only frisked about; and it teased the mare so, I had to take it away to the biggest stall.”
Yanek and his brother took their leave, but the former had his eyes fixed on Yagna to the very last: he saw she was still more lovely than in autumn, when yet unmarried.
It was therefore no wonder that she had so completely overcome her old husband, who could see nothing in the world but her. They said truly in the village that his love had made a dotard of him. Hard and unyielding as he was to everyone else, Yagna could do with him whatever she pleased; he obeyed her in everything, saw things only through her eyes, and took her advice, and her mother’s too. Nor had he any reason to regret the results. His farm was in good order, everything prospered, he had every comfort, someone to complain to and talk things over with; and his only care in the world was now Yagna, to whom he cast up his eyes as to some holy image.
Even now, whilst warming himself by the fire, he looked lovingly in her direction, and had ready, just
