The lamps were not yet out, and a long streak of brightness from the open window, passing through the dahlia bushes and the hedge, illumined the road. Boryna, standing in the shadow, glanced into the room.
A big fire was evidently burning on the hearth, for the crackling of pinewood could be heard; and the great room, though dusky in the corners, was elsewhere filled with a reddish light. The old dame, crouching close to the fireplace, was reading something aloud; and Yagna, dressed only in her smock, her face turned to the window and her sleeves tucked up to the shoulders, was engaged in plucking a live goose.
“A comely wench!” he thought.
She would raise her head now and then, listen to the reading, and heave a deep sigh. Then she would again set to plucking the goose, but so roughly that the bird would gabble audibly with pain, and, escaping from her hands, flap about the room till the feathers were flying everywhere. But she would soon quiet it and hold it fast between her knees, the bird uttering only a few faint cries, to which other cries responded from the passage and the yard.
“A handsome girl, she,” he mused and walked away at a rapid pace, for the blood had gone to his head. Raising his hand to his brow, he drew tightened his girdle as he walked.
He was already within his own gates, and had passed the fence, when he looked round at Yagna’s dwelling, which stood opposite on the other side of the water. Someone was just then going out, for a quick flash from the opening door lit up the pond. Heavy footsteps were heard tramping along, and the splash of a bucket of water was audible; then at last, amid the darkness and the mists which had come up from the meadows, a voice sang to a slow tune:
“Betwixt us rolls the flood, O grief!
How can I send a kiss from here?
I’ll float it down upon a leaf
And waft my love to thee, my dear.”
He listened long, but the voice was heard no more; and after a while all the lights were put out.
The moon, now in her full, had risen above the forest-trees, silvering their tops, throwing its radiance through their boughs and upon the pond, and peeping down into the cottage windows. The dogs no longer barked. An unfathomable stillness had settled over the village and over all nature.
Boryna made the round of the yard, took a look at the horses that snorted as they munched their provender, and put his head into the cow-byre, the doors of which stood open because of the heat. The cows were lying and chewing the cud with the low murmurs peculiar to cattle.
He closed the granary doors and, taking off his hat, entered his cabin and said his evening prayers half aloud. All were sleeping. He undressed quietly and went at once to bed.
He could not sleep, however. The coverlet was so hot that he drew it from over his feet. His head, too, was teeming with many a troublesome and worrisome thought. Besides, he was not at his best physically.
“Sour milk,” he muttered, “as I always say, is not good to take of an evening.”
And then he thought about his children and pondered over what had been said of Yagna, till all this became muddled and confused in his brain. He knew not what to do, and was on the point (as once had been his wont) of calling for advice to the sleeper in the other bed:
“Mary! Am I to marry or not?”
But he remembered in time that his Mary had been lying in the churchyard ever since the spring. Yuzka was there, asleep and breathing heavily. And he was a poor desolate man, with no one on earth to advise him. So he gave a deep sigh, crossed himself, and said a few Ave Marias for the soul of his departed and for the souls of all the faithful in purgatory.
III
When daybreak began to shed its light on the cabin-roofs, and dispel the night, and make the stars to fade, things were already moving about Boryna’s hut.
Kuba had left the stable. There was hoarfrost on the ground, and it was yet grey dawn; but the East flaunted a tinge of burning red, and the frosty treetops likewise. He stretched himself with satisfaction, yawned more than once, and went to the byre to call Vitek; for it was time to rise. But the lad only lifted his drowsy head, and whispering: “Presently, Kuba, presently,” laid it down again.
“Well, sleep a little more, poor fellow! sleep yet a little more!” Kuba covered him with a sheepskin coat, and limped away; for he had once received a bullet in the knee, which lamed him for life. He washed at the well, ran his fingers through his scanty hair, that had got matted during the night, and, kneeling down on the stable threshold, proceeded to say his prayers.
The master was still in bed, when the cabin-windows took a purple tint in the ruddy glow of morning. Kuba’s rosary glided through his fingers; he prayed for a long time, his eyes wandering nevertheless over the yard, the windows, the orchard with the hoarfrost still not melted on the trunks, and the apple-trees, laden with fruit as large as his fist. Then he threw something at the white head of Lapa, the dog which slept in the kennel close by; but Lapa only growled, curled up, and slept on.
“What, you rascal! would ye sleep till sunrise?” he cried, and threw missile after missile, till the dog came out, with a stretch and a yawn and a wag of its tail, and, approaching him, proceeded to scratch itself and cleanse its shaggy coat with its teeth.
“And unto Thee, and also unto all Thy Saints, do I,
