“Oh, what fragrant pink flowers!” said Vitek wistfully.
“So they are, so they are!”
All crowded round, and gazed on the sweet-scented spray with great joy and wonder. But just then Yagustynka came in, now again her former self, loud of speech, bold, and always seeking an opportunity to sting someone to the quick.
“Aye, Yuzka, the rod has blossomed, but not for you: what you need yet is the strap, or a good stout cudgel!” Thus she spoke at once on entering.
“For me, for me, it has blossomed!” she cried. “I myself cut it on St. Andrew’s night: I myself!”
“But,” Yagna explained, “you are as yet too young; no doubt it has foretold Nastka’s marriage.”
“We both together put it in the pot; but I cut it, and so it has blossomed for me!” Yuzka insisted, while the tears sprang to her eyes, because her right to the prediction was not admitted.
“Plenty of time before you, Yuzka, to run after young men and wait at stiles for them: let your elders go first,” said Yagna, smiling at Nastka. “So, Yuzka, be quiet.—Here’s news for you all: that Magda who was at the organist’s gave birth in the church porch last night!”
“Can such a thing be?”
“It can, for it has been. When Ambrose went out to ring, he stumbled over the girl.”
“O Lord! and she did not die of cold?”
“No, not she; but her child did. Yet she all but died herself. They took her to the priest’s dwelling, and they are tending her still. But … ’twere better they had let her alone. What has she to live for? Can aught of good come to her now?”
“Matthew told me that when the organist turned her away, she was always at the miller’s, and staying there overnight, till at last—probably by the miller’s directions—her Franek beat her and sent her flying.”
“Well,” said Yagustynka, “what was he to do with her? Frame her like a picture and hang her up, hey?—Franek is like his fellows: ‘He of oaths made a lot; what he wanted he got—and then kept them not.’ Not faultless he, not by any means: but the organist is by far the worst of all. While she was well, they made her work as much as a yoke of oxen ploughing: she alone did everything for them. And now, as soon as she is ill, they have driven her away! A murrain on such folk!”
“But,” Nastka cried, “wherefore did she yield to Franek?”
“And you also would yield to Yasyek, were you but sure that the banns would follow!”
Nastka took offense at this, and a quarrel seemed imminent, but Boryna came in at that moment, and they said no more.
“Do ye know about Magda? She is still living, but in a dead faint. Had she been left there the space of another ‘Pater,’ Ambrose says, she would have turned up her toes. Roch is rubbing her with snow, and giving her to drink; but they think she will not be well for a long time.”
“And whither is she to go then, poor thing?”
“No doubt the Koziols will take her to their home: she is a kinswoman of theirs.”
“The Koziols, indeed! Why, they have naught themselves but what they can filch or get by cheating: how could they nurse her? And here we have so many wealthy men and landowners, and none will come forward to help her!”
“Yes, yes,” Boryna said; “farmers have endless treasures, and everything falls to them from the sky, and their only business is to help everyone! What, shall I gather all the needy on all the highways, bring them in here, and feed and nurse them, and pay the doctor for them, perhaps, into the bargain?—Ye are old, Yagustynka, and the wind blows in your head.”
“I say not that anyone can be forced to aid the needy; but yet men are not beasts, nor should they be left to perish out of doors.”
“Well, things in this world are as they are, and must remain so, and ye will not change them.”
“Long ago, before the war—in the days when the nobles were masters, there was, I remember, a hospital in the village for poor people. Yes, and it was in the very house where the organist dwells now. And I remember, too, folk had to pay to keep it up—so much out of every acre they had.”
Boryna was annoyed and surly: he did not care to discuss the matter, and closed the debate with:
“Talking of this will do as much good as incense burnt to bring the dead to life.”
“True, no good at all. On him that feels no pity for the cries of those who suffer, their tears too will have no effect. The thriving man thinks that all in this world goes well and as God has commanded.”
To this Boryna gave no reply, so Yagustynka turned to Nastka.
“And what about Matthew’s ribs? Any better?”
“Matthew? why, what has befallen him?”
“What!” Nastka exclaimed; “do ye not know of it? It came to pass ere Yuletide. … Your Antek flew at him, took him by the throat, carried him out of the mill, and dashed him against the fence so hard that the railing broke. He fell in and was like to drown. Now he is ill, and spits blood, and cannot move. Ambrose says he has four ribs broken, and his womb is out of place.27 And now he is always moaning and groaning.”
She burst into tears.
At the first words, Yagna had started up, struck with the feeling that the fight had been about herself. But presently she sat down again upon a chest, pressing her lips to the cherry-blossoms to cool them.
Those of the house were astounded: though the incident was the talk of the whole village, no whisper of it had yet come to Boryna’s cabin.
He growled: “Like has fallen foul of like—one ruffian of another. No great harm done!”
“But,” Yagna inquired after a pause, “why did they fight?”
“On account
