“You are a living lie! They all have fallen away from me, and so have you!—Love me? Aye, even as a dog that bares its teeth to bite loves me! Yes, I have seen through you clearly, and this I know: if folk were minded to slay me, you’d be the first to lend a rope; if to stone me, you’d throw the first stone!”
“Antek!” she cried, aghast.
“Be still, and hear me out!” he said sternly. “I have spoken the truth. … And since it has come to this—well, then, there now is naught in the world that I care for!”
“I must be off; they are calling me,” she stammered, alarmed and trying to make her escape. But he seized her arm, so that she could not move, and went on in harsh menacing tones:
“This, moreover, do I tell you … for you have not then sense to see it for yourself: If I have fallen so low as this, it is through you—mark well—through you! … Because of you, the priest has rebuked me and driven me from the church! Because of you, the whole village shrinks from me as from one smitten with the plague. … I have borne all … all. … Nor did I take revenge when he—that father of mine—gave into your hands so much of the land that’s my own! … And now—now—you loathe me! Aye, turn and writhe and twist it as you will, you lie!—You are like the rest of them, you look on me as they do, and fear me as if I were a robber or a slayer of men!
“What you want is another man: nay, ye would have them all at your heels … like dogs in the springtime—you!” he screamed, beside himself with rage. And then he overwhelmed her with the agonies and the venomous thoughts he had fed on for so long, making her responsible for all, and cursing her for his sufferings, until at last his anger choked his voice and maddened him so, that he rushed upon her with uplifted fists. But, stopping short just in time, he flung her back against the wall—and strode off!
“O Lord!—Antek!” she cried, realizing all at once what he meant; and, darting after him, she put her arms round his neck in despair. But he cast her off as one shakes off a leech, and hastened away without a word; while she fell to the ground, crushed and broken as if the whole universe had fallen upon her.
After some time, however, she came in some sort to her senses; but the feeling of deep injustice she had suffered and of the wrong undergone was so keen in her that her heart was broken with grief. She felt herself suffocating, and wanted to cry out to the whole world that she was blameless and had done no evil!
She called aloud after him, although his steps were no longer to be heard; she lifted up her voice, but in vain.
Her deep distress, her heartfelt sorrow, and the dull, crushing, terribly cruel thought that he might possibly never return to her, together with her dead fondness that had come to life again, all descended upon her now, with a tremendous weight of unappeasable torment; and she wept loudly as she walked home, caring not who might hear her.
In the porch she met Klemba’s son, who only just peeped into the cabin, shouting: “They are cutting down our forest!” and hurried on to the next hut.
The news spread like wildfire through Lipka, and gripped all hearts, filling them with fierce anger. Men ran through the village with the news, so fast that doors were opening and slamming every instant.
Truly, it was a matter of life and death to the villagers, and of such evil import that they were all at once struck dumb—or, rather, thunderstruck. They walked in fear, on tiptoe, spoke in whispers, looking with apprehension at one another, and listening likewise. No one cried out yet, nor complained aloud, nor broke out into curses. The thing was overwhelming, they all knew, and of the greatest moment—one in which women’s babbling could do nothing. What was required was wise determination and resolve on the part of the whole community.
It was late; but no one cared to go to bed now. Some had left their supper unfinished, the household work unaccomplished. The roads were full of people, as were also the cabin surroundings. Men walked about on the banks of the pond, and their subdued whispers and mutterings were audible in the twilight as the buzzing of angry bees.
And now the weather was better; the rain had stopped, the sky had cleared up a little; flocks of clouds were moving across the sky, and on the earth a chilly wind blew, freezing the ground, and whitening with hoarfrost the black skeletons of the trees. The voices, too, though not loud, were now more distinctly heard.
It was at once known in the village that a number of peasant-landowners had assembled and gone in a body to see the Voyt.
There was Vinciorek, with Gregory, called the Lame One; they saw Michael Caban, passing along with Franek Bylitsa, cousin to Hanka’s father; and Soho too, and also Valek the Wry-mouthed; likewise Joseph Vahnik, Casimir Sikora—even time-honoured Ploshka. Only Boryna was seen by none; though they said he was there, too.
The Voyt was not in; he had that very afternoon driven over to headquarters on official business; so they all assembled at Klemba’s, followed by multitudes, women and children among them. But they made the door fast and let no one in. Voytek, the son of Klemba, had orders to watch the road and tavern, lest a gendarme should by chance show his face in the village. …
Round the cabin, filling the farmyard, and even the road beyond it, folk came in throngs together, all wondering what
