“True, openhanded she was not, and she thought not a little of herself, as do all the Boryna folk; but I am sorry for her, nevertheless.”
“To be just, that husband of hers is a scoundrel.”
“Were it any business of mine, I’d take Yagna to task on the high road, rate her, curse her, and swinge her soundly.”
“That too may come to pass—worse still, peradventure.”
“The woman’s of the brood of Paches. … And her mother was just the same in her youth.”
“Let us on: the wind is falling, and may go quite down ere nightfall.”
Presently they all entered the forest, and separated, but so as to be within call for the homecoming. And the gloomy depths swallowed them up so entirely that they soon could see hardly anything of one another.
It was a vast forest of old pine-trees, all standing close to each other, straight and slender and strong; whose trunks, overgrown with whitish-green lichens, looked like pillars of verdigris-stained copper, peering forth amidst green verdure, flecked with grey, in impenetrable ranks. Chilly mournful sounds rose up from the snow underfoot; overhead, athwart ragged pine-boughs, as through a broken thatch, the sky was visible.
The wind blew above them; but at times all seemed as still as in a church, when the organs suddenly cease to play, and the chants are heard no more, and nothing is audible save deep sighs, the shuffling of feet, the mumbling of prayers in a faint dying hum: so the forest stood motionless, mute, listening, as it were, to a faraway thundering—to the wild cry of the ravaged fields which, rising up from some remote spot, was heard only as a feeble moan.
By and by, however, the gale struck the forest with all its force—struck against its close-set trunks, assailing its depths, shrieking in its dim nooks, and fighting an army of giants.—Only to be defeated: its might gave way, collapsed, grew weak, died in the compact undergrowth of brushwood. The forest itself was unmoved; not a single branch waved, nor did any trunk vibrate; within, the silence was deeper yet, still more awful; only a bird or two was heard to flutter about in the shadows.
But, now and again, there would come a squall of lightning swiftness and power, like a hungry falcon swooping down upon its prey: it took hold of the treetops and, with an overwhelming shock, trampled and crushed and shattered them in roaring frenzy. Then did the forest, as if roused from slumber, wake up and shake itself and, shuddering from one end to the other, rock its trees, swaying with a dull but hurtling and ominous clangor; it rose again, stiffening and straightening itself once more, uttering a terrible cry, and struggling like a wrestler blind and mad with rage; and the hubbub rent the air, and there was fighting within the wood to its innermost depths. Every creature that lurked and dwelt in the thick copses shrank back in dismay to its lair; and, maddened with alarm, the fowls of the air flew wildly about in the midst of the snow-showers and avalanches of broken snapped-off boughs that fell from the treetops.
And, after this, there would follow long death-silences, in which heavy thuds were heard afar off.
“They are felling the trees in Vilche Doly; how fast the work goes on!” old Bylitsa murmured, as he gave ear to the dull throbbing sounds.
“Hurry, hurry! we must return before night!”
They plunged into a clump of tall young saplings, where brushwood and scrub had so intermingled their thickly tangled branches that they scarce could force their way through. A sepulchral stillness reigned around; no sound reached there; even light hardly filtered through the thick layer of snow which crusted the trees all over, hanging like a roof overhead. This secluded nook was earthy-ashy grey, very little snow having been wafted to the ground, which was strewn, knee-deep in places, with dry dead boughs; elsewhere with great masses of green moss; with berry-shrubs, yellow, faded, cowering close to the ground as in fear; and with dried clusters of toadstools.
Hanka went about actively, breaking off the biggest branches she could find, cutting them all to the same length, and then putting them into the open piece of canvas she had brought; working with such ardour that she had to take off her shawl, she felt so warm. In about an hour’s time, she had gathered a bundle of faggots so large that she could scarcely lift it. Her father, too, had made a pretty large bundle himself, and tied it up with a cord, dragging it along in search of a tree-stump, where he might with more ease hoist it on to his shoulders.
They called out to the women; but the blast blew so furiously through the vast forest that they could not make them hear.
“Hanka, we must go back by the poplar-road: it will be better than the cut through the fields.”
“Come, then. Keep your eyes upon me, and do not lag too much behind.”
They at once struck off to the left, through a bit of old oak-forest. But it was hard work getting on, the snow being more than knee-deep here; and now and then came still worse patches, where the leafless trees were scanty and there hung down from the mighty outspread branches huge long beards of caked snow: here and there, too, some slender sapling, covered with a shaggy rusty fell of dead leaves, would bend down, striking the earth in the whistling wind.
It was still blowing hard, with the air so full of snow that there was no going any farther. Old Bylitsa’s strength at once gave way, and he came to a standstill. Even Hanka felt exhausted; but she only leaned with her bundle against a tree, and sought for some better road.
“We shall never get through this way. Besides, there is a marsh beyond the oak-forests. Let us go back through the fields.”
They somehow made their way back to the great dense pine wood, where it
