“Union, my dear friend, is the only thing. Union.” He took snuff, put his fur cap on, and added: “Union and brotherly love make the whole world go round. And that is why the manor would willingly come to an agreement with you. The Squire told me as much: he is a good man, and would fain arrive at a neighbourly understanding with everyone. …”
“When a wolf is your neighbour, you can only come to an understanding with a club or an ax!”
The priest started, shocked at the words, and looked him steadily in the face; but, seeing the cold relentless expression of his eyes and his set lips, turned away hastily, and rubbed his hands, much upset.
“I must away. Allow me to repeat that you ought not to set your wife against you by severe treatment. She is young—flighty, too, as women are—and you should deal with her wisely, and justly as well: be blind to one thing, deaf to another, and overlook a third. Thus ye may avoid unpleasant scenes, which might have most evil consequences. Yes: our Lord has a special blessing for peacemakers. For peacemakers.—Oh! what on earth is this?” he suddenly exclaimed, much startled; for the stork, hitherto standing motionless by the chest, had unexpectedly pecked with all its might at the priest’s well-polished boot.
“It’s only a stork, that remained here in autumn, with a broken wing, and Vitek took care of it, and nursed it till it got well again. Now it stays in the hut with us, and catches mice as well as any cat could do.”
“Really? I never yet saw a tame stork. Curious, most curious!”
He bent down to give Bociek a caress; but this it would have none of, and with curved neck meditated another sly attack on the priest’s boot.
“Upon my word, I like it so much that, if you would sell it, I would gladly buy it of you.”
“Sell it? Not I. But the lad shall take it at once to your Reverence’s house.”
“I will send Valentine for it.”
“Ah, but no one save Vitek may touch it, and it obeys him alone.”
They called the boy in; the priest gave him a zloty and told him to bring it in the evening, after the round of the parish had been finished. Vitek cried much and, after the priest’s departure, took Bociek with him to the byre, where he blubbered aloud till dusk; then Boryna came to silence him and remind him that the bird had to be taken; Vitek unwillingly obeyed, but his heart melted in his breast, and he went about, his eyes swollen with tears and like one half-witted, now and then running to the stork, gathering it in his arms and kissing it, weeping sorely all the while.
So, when the priest was home at nightfall, he wrapped Bociek up in his own little capote, to protect it from the cold, and (together with Yuzka, for the bird was too heavy for him alone to carry) took it over to the priest’s: Lapa accompanying them, and barking moodily all the way.
Now, the more the old man weighed the priest’s words, and his strong and evidently sincere assertions, the more satisfied and tranquil did he become: so that, slowly and by imperceptible degrees, he changed his attitude towards Yagna.
Yet, though things returned to their former state, the former peace of mind, the deep quiet trust of old, was there no longer.
As when a broken vessel has been repaired with wire woven around it, it indeed looks whole, yet somehow leaks and lets the water through, though the place of leakage is invisible to the eye: so was it likewise in that hut: from within that reconciliation, and through unseen fissures, the secret mistrust it contained came forth by drops; and though resentment was no more so keen, suspicion still remained alive and undying.
Hard as he tried, the old man could not quite rid himself of his distrust. Almost unwittingly, he constantly had an eye on Yagna’s every motion; and she, on her part, never forgave his past anger and bitter words, and boiled with resentment that now too she could not but notice how keenly vigilant his eyes were.
Perhaps, too, the certitude that he was watching and put no trust in her made her dislike him more violently, and love Antek more.
She had managed things so dexterously that they often met by the haystack. Vitek was their helper in this. Since the loss of his stork, his master’s displeasure troubled him not at all, and he had quite gone over to Yagna. She, on her side, gave him better food to eat, and Antek very often had a few kopeks for the lad. But their chief abettor in this was Yagustynka, who had so crept into Yagna’s good graces, and had so won Antek’s confidence, that they simply could not do without her. She brought messages to and fro, protected them from surprises on the part of Boryna, and kept good watch over him. All this she did out of pure hatred for people. She wreaked upon others her revenge for the harsh treatment meted out to her. Though she detested both Antek and Yagna, she detested still more the old husband, who was one of the rich men in the village. And yet she had for the poor not less of hatred and even more of scorn!
In truth, she was diabolically wicked … and possibly, as folk whispered, evil in a yet more unearthly sense.
“They will,” she often said to herself, “one day fly at each other, and fight it out like mad dogs.”
In winter there was but little to do; so she used to go with her distaff from hut to hut, listening to the talk and setting folk by the ears and laughing with impartiality at everyone. None durst close their doors on her, partly out of fear of her tongue, partly because she was thought
