Yagna, indeed, cared as much for his love as for last year’s snow. Just now she was moody, and out of patience with his transports of tenderness. Everything harried her, and she went about, angry and cold as a February wind, throwing work on her mother, or on Yuzka, and spurring her husband himself to exertions by some sharp word: she herself went to the other lodgings, she said, to see about the stove, and to the stable to tend the colt; but, in reality, to be alone and think of Antek.
For Yanek had reminded her of him, and now Antek was as present to her mind’s eye as if he were there before her in the flesh. During hard upon three months she had seen nothing of him—except that once, when she was driving out along the Poplar-road. Yes, time had flowed by like a river: the wedding, the homecoming, her various occupations and the cares of her household duties, had left her no time to think of him. Out of sight, out of mind; and her acquaintances had avoided all mention of his name. And now, she knew not why, he had surged up suddenly before her with so sad and reproachful a look that her very soul within her was shaken and distressed.—“I have done no harm to you,” she said within herself; “why, then, are you haunting me thus, like a spectre, like a ghost?” And she attempted to wrestle with her memories of the past. She marvelled why his figure alone came back to her so—not Matthew’s, not Staho Ploshka’s, not any of the others—only his! Had he given her a love-charm that was now putting her beside herself, and tormenting her with the pangs that she felt?
“What is he doing now, poor fellow? what is he thinking of? … And there is no means of having speech with him, none!—Certainly, it is a grievous sin.—Dear Jesus! It is a thing forbidden; so the priest told me in confession.—Oh, but if I could only speak to him once more—speak even in presence of a third person!—No, no: never, never, never! … I am Boryna’s until death!”
“Yagna!” her mother called; “do come: we have to take the loaves out.”
She ran back to the house, hurrying and bustling, and seeking to forget. But in vain: everywhere she saw his eyes, and those black overshadowing brows of his—and those red, red lips … how ravenously eager, and how sweet!
She set to work with feverish activity, putting the place in order; and in the evening she went to the byre, a place she scarcely ever visited. But all would not do. He was always there—there before her.—A great craving arose within her, tearing her heart to shreds; and her soul was so sorely tempest-tossed that she at last came to Yuzka, sedulously at work making “globes,” and, sitting down upon the chest by her side, burst into a passion of tears.
Her mother and her husband were alarmed and sought to calm her; they tried to soothe her as one soothes a spoiled child; they caressed her, they looked lovingly into her eyes: all was of no avail. She cried till she could cry no longer. And then, suddenly, she felt a change and, rising from her seat in a strange humour of merriment, began to talk and laugh, and almost burst into song.
Boryna stared at her in wonder, and so did her mother. Then they exchanged glances full of meaning, and went out to whisper together in the passage. They came back gay and joyful, and embraced and kissed her with the most tender affection.
“Do not lift that kneading-trough!” exclaimed Dominikova earnestly; “you must not. Matthias will do that for you!”
“Why, I have often lifted and carried many a heavier thing!”
She did not understand.
Boryna would not let her touch the trough; he carried it himself. And a little later, when she was in the bedroom, he took the opportunity of taking her in his arms and telling her something that Yuzka was not to hear.
“Both mother’s head and yours are turned! What you suppose is not the case: you are both wrong.”
“These are things that we know something about, and there is no mistake here.—Let me see. It is Yuletide now. … Then—then it will be only in July.—Dear, dear! in harvest-time!—Yet let us thank God that it has come to pass in any case.” He would have embraced her again, but she shrank away from him in a temper, and ran to her mother to protest. The old dame, however, asserted that there was no mistake.
“There is, there is! ’tis naught but your fancy!” Yagna cried in hot denial.
“You are not glad of this, it seems?”
“And why should I be glad? Have we not enough troubles, without this too thrown in?”
“Do not complain, or the Lord will punish you!”
“Let Him, let Him!”
“But what have you to complain of?”
“That I do not wish it: that is all!”
“Look, Yagna: if you have a child, then, in the case of your husband’s death (which Heaven forfend!) it would have an equal part with the other children as his heir; and possibly all the land might come to it in the end. …”
“Land, land, land! Ye think of naught else; and to me it is naught!”
“Because you’re as yet a silly child, and your head is full of nonsense. A man without land is like a man without legs: he crawls about and cannot get anywhere.—But, at any rate, say nothing of this to Matthias; it would vex him.”
“I shall say whatever I like. What do I care for him?”
“Then do so, if you are such a fool; yes, tell everybody about it!—Go rather, set to work; take the herrings out of the water to soak them in milk; it will make them less salt. And tell Yuzka to pound some more poppy-seed; there is yet much work, and the day
