No. She had got all that was required. With her she carried a Candlemas taper that she had begged after a nightwatch over a dead body; a bottle of holy water; a new sprinkling-brush, a consecrated picture of Our Lady of Chenstohova, which she should hold when dying, and a few score zloty for her burial, which might possibly also suffice for a Mass to be said, before the body, with candles and the rite of sprinkling performed at the church-door. For she never dreamed that the priest would accompany the body to the grave.
That was out of the question. Not every landowner had the luck of being honoured thus; besides, the fee for that alone would swallow up all her savings!
She sighed heavily and rose to her feet, feeling much weaker than usual. Her lungs hurt her greatly, and she was so racked with coughing that she could hardly crawl along.
“If,” she mused, “I was able to hold out till haymaking, or till the harvest begins! Oh, then I could willingly lie down and die, dear Jesus! lie down and die!”
She thought her hopes sinful, and wanted to excuse them.
But now arose the disquieting thought: who would take her in and let her die in his hut?
“I shall,” she said, “look for some good kindhearted people: and they may be more willing if I promise them a little money. Indeed, no one cares to have trouble and annoyance in his own cottage on account of a stranger.”
As to dying at her relations’, the Klembas, she durst not even think of that.
“So many children!—No room in the cabin; and the fowls are laying now, and place must be made for them.—And then, it were a disgrace for such landowners to have a beggar, their kinswoman, die under their roof.”
All this she was pondering without any bitterness, as she plodded her way on the road along the dike raised to protect the meadows and cabbage-plantations from a flood.
The millpond shone bright on her left, reflecting the sun’s golden locks in its deep-blue waters. On its banks, overgrown with drooping alders, flocks of geese screamed and flapped their wings; on the still miry roads, troops of merry children ran about and shouted.
And Lipka stood on this side and on that of the pond, as it had stood no doubt ever since the world began, buried in its wide-spreading orchards, and in the undergrowths of its enclosures.
Slowly Agata trudged on, but with swift glances that took everything in at once. The miller’s wife was sitting on the threshold of her house, amongst a boisterous troop of goslings, yellow as wax, that she was taking care of. Agata greeted her, and went quickly past, well pleased that the dogs which lay basking along the walls had not taken note of her.
She crossed the bridge, where the waters began their rush to the mill-wheels, and the road forked out into two branches that embraced the whole village.
After an instant’s hesitation, her desire to see everything mastered her, and she turned to the left, making her way a little longer.
The forge, which she passed first, was silent and lifeless; against the sooty walls stood the fore part of a cart and several rusty ploughs: but the smith himself was away, and his wife, in smock and petticoat, busy digging in the orchard.
Agata went around, stopping before every hut, leaning over the low stone fences, and gazing curiously at all she saw within. Dogs came up and sniffed at her, but seemed to recognize one of the inhabitants, and went back to lie in the sun.
Wherever she went, she found a strange stillness and emptiness.
“All the men are away … attending either at some law court or a meeting somewhere,” she finally said to herself, as she entered the church.
Mass was over; his Reverence sat in the confessional; some dozen or so of people from distant hamlets were in the pews, at intervals heaving deep sighs, or uttering some words of their prayers aloud.
From a lamp suspended in front of the high altar, a ripple as of bluish smoke ascended tremulously through the sunlight that poured down from the windows high above. Without, sparrows chirruped, and now and then ventured into the aisles with straws in their beaks; from time to time a swallow came twittering in by the great doorway, swept round, skirting the cold silent walls, and speedily flew back to the bright world outside.
Agata said a few short prayers and hurried out, eager to get to the Klembas’. Just in front of the church, Yagustynka met her.
“What, you here, Agata!” she exclaimed in astonishment.
“Yes, here I am, and still alive, good dame”; and she bent to kiss her hand.
“Why, they said ye had turned up your toes somewhere far away. But I see that ‘our Lord’s bread,’ though easily earned, has not done you much good. There’s a churchyard look about you,” the old hag said, eyeing her mockingly.
“Ye say true, good dame; I have scarce been able to drag my old bones hither.”
“Off to the Klembas’, eh?”
“Surely. Are they not my kith and kin?”
“Your wallet is pretty well filled: they will receive you kindly. Also ye have there, I dare say, a few coins knotted in a clout. Aye, aye! they will certainly admit your kinship.”
“Are they all well?” Agata interrupted, pained at her jeers.
“They are. Except Thomas, who is in poor health, but getting better in prison.”
“Thomas! In prison?—Pray make no such jokes; they do not amuse me.”
“What I said I repeat. But let me add that he is in good company; the whole village is there too along with him. When the law comes in, with its trapdoors and gratings, it takes no account if a man has land or not.”
Agata stood bewildered. “Jesus, Mary, Joseph!” she moaned.
“Now hurry along to Klemba’s wife: you will
