All the congregation were struck with awe and held their breath. Every eye was cast upon Antek like a fiery dart. He, white as a sheet, and scarcely able to breathe, stood stiffly upright, the words smiting him as if the church were falling about his ears. He looked round, as though to find help; but there was now an empty space round him, lined only by menacing or terrified faces. The folk shrank from him, as from one stricken with the plague.—And now the priest cried aloud, calling him to repentance, beseeching, imploring, adjuring him. Finally, turning again to the people, he exhorted them with outstretched arms to beware of a man so infamous, to protect themselves against him, to refuse him fire, water, food—aye, and not to let him so much as darken their doors. “For such a one would taint you all; ye would all grow foul at his touch; and, should he not mend his ways, atone for his misdeeds and do penance, then ought ye to pluck him out as ye weed stinging nettles, and cast him forth to his perdition!”
At those words, Antek suddenly turned round; the people fell away from him right and left, and he passed out by the lane thus made, while the priest’s voice followed, smiting him as with a scourge that drew blood at each stroke.
A wild cry of despair echoed at that moment through the church; but Antek did not hear it. He walked out as fast as he could, fearing lest he should fall dead with agony—fearing those eyes that glowed, fearing that awful voice.
He went out into the highway and on to the poplar road, leading to the woods. From time to time, he paused affrighted: he still could hear that voice, which rang in his ears like a knell.
It was a cold and windy night. The poplars were rocking noisily; sometimes a bough struck him across the face; and when the gale fell, there came a cold thin March rain that drizzled in his eyes. But Antek went on his way unheeding, bewildered, amazed, filled with unspeakable awe.
“Things are now at their worst!” he muttered at last, coming to a standstill. “Yes, he was right! he was right!”
“O Jesus! My Jesus!” he shrieked, seizing his head in his hands with a sudden clutch. At that instant he had seen as in a flash all the horror of his sins, and was torn with an unearthly sense of humiliation.
He sat for a long time brooding under a tree, gazing into the night and listening to the low, tremulous, eerie music of the waving trees.
A convulsion of rage and hatred seized him. “It is all through that man—that man!” he exclaimed, his former resentment springing up anew, and all those cravings for revenge spreading over his mind again, dark as the clouds that overspread the sky.
“Never will I forgive him! no, never!” he bellowed, his recklessness returning. And he at once started up, to go back to the village.
The church was now locked; the cabin-windows shone bright. As he went by, he passed several knots of people, who, in spite of the rain, stood engaged in eager talk.
On passing the tavern, he looked in at the window, saw there was plenty of company inside, and went in boldly, as if there had been nothing amiss. But when he approached the largest group with greetings, only one or two shook hands with him; the others hastily withdrew and left the place.
In a minute, he was all but alone in the tavern. Besides the Jew behind the bar, there was only a dziad sitting by the fire.
He had driven them all away! It was a bitter pill, but he swallowed it, and ordered some vodka; then, laying down the glass untouched, he rushed out.
He strayed along the banks of the pond, eyeing with a vacant stare the long fiery streaks which, from the lighted windows, swept over the wet snow and glistened on the water with which the ice was now covered.
Gentler thoughts came to him. His heart felt unspeakably heavy: he was so terribly alone, so much in want of human converse, of some fireside to sit by, that he went straight to Ploshka’s cabin, the first along his way.
A large assembly was there; but, when he entered, they all started to their feet in dismay. Even Staho, who was there too, could not find a word to say to him.
He muttered: “Ye stare at me as if I were a murderer!” and went out to the next hut, which was Balcerek’s.
Here they received him with the utmost frigidity, mumbling some inarticulate words in response to his greeting, and not even asking him to be seated.
He looked in at several huts in this way, and with the same result. As a last resource, and to leave no drop of pain and humiliation untasted, he went to see Matthew. But the man was not in; and his mother at once, and from the very threshold, stormed at him and drove
