“Sleep wheresoever ye choose: there is no lack of room now!”
But as she was going up the ladder to the loft, Klembova spoke to her through the open door:
“Oh, I had all but forgotten to tell you. … We have taken your featherbed out of your chest. … During the Carnival, Marcyha was down with the smallpox … and it was very cold … and we had nothing to keep her warm with.—So we borrowed it of you. … It has been aired by now, and shall be taken upstairs tomorrow.”
“My featherbed?—Well, ’twas your wish. … All right, since ye wanted it.”
She broke off, unable to say more, and groped her way up to the chest. Raising the lid, she ran her hands feverishly over her funeral outfit.
Yes, the featherbed that she had left completely new had been taken! New, not even once used! … How she had picked up the stuffing, feather by feather, gleaning them upon the goose-pastures, to have her last bed ready for her! She burst out crying: the blow was too cruel.
And she prayed for a long time, seasoning her prayers with bitter tears, and lovingly complaining to her dear Jesus of the wrong done to her.
II
The next day was Palm Sunday.
Bright and early, Hanka rose, putting on only her petticoat, and throwing a shawl on her shoulders, for the cold.
Round she looked everywhere, even to the boundaries of the enclosure and over on to the road. It was quite empty and void of life: only the dry light of dawn clad the leafless treetops along its line.
Returning to the porch, and kneeling down with difficulty (for she expected to be confined in a week or so), she began her morning prayer, with drowsy eyes wandering over the landscape.
The day, laden with white fire, was coming apace, and the ruddy glow of dawn melting away into a golden expanse in the East, like the rich silk canopy over the Monstrance, when the Monstrance is not yet in sight.
There had been a slight frost overnight; hedges, roofs, cottages shone with white radiance, and the trees had the air of so many fleecy clouds.
The village was still sleeping in the haze that crept along the ground; but a few cabins nearer the road now began to show their snowy walls. The mill went on uninterruptedly; the river babbled and bubbled low, audible but unseen.
Cocks were noisy and many birds chirped in the orchards, as if saying their morning prayers together, when Hanka went out again to look over all the place and wake the sleepers.
She first opened the half-door to the sty. A large porker struggled to get up, but was so fat, it rolled back upon its substantial hind quarters, and only turned its snout towards her, grunting, as she inspected the trough and put in some fresh food.
“Its hams are so clad with fat, it can hardly rise. Truly, the fat is at least four inches thick!” And she felt its sides with delight.
Entering the poultry-house, she then, to attract the fowls, threw some of the pig’s food she had brought with her. Down they came in a hurry from their roosting-place, with the cocks crowing lustily.
She drove away the ganders, which attacked them, and carefully examined the eggs, one by one, holding them up to the light.
“They will be hatched out in an hour!” she said, for she could just make out a faint pecking sound within.
Just then Lapa, indifferent to the ganders hissing round him, came out of his kennel, drowsily and yawning audibly.
At her sight, with a bark and a wag of his tail, he came to her through the crowd of hens; the feathers flew about. He leaped up at her, put his paws on her breast, and licked her hands, she patting his head the while.
“Ah, this dumb creature has more feeling than many a man! … Now, Pete! Time to rise!” she cried, beating on the stable-door, until she heard a grumbling and the sound of a bolt shot back; thereupon she opened the cow-byre door, where the kine were lying in a row before their mangers.
“What, Vitek! Sleeping so hard, and so late? Up, young imp!”
The boy awoke, rose from his straw bed, and began to draw his breeches on, though murmuring; for he was afraid of her.
“Give the kine some hay to eat, before I milk them; and then come at once and peel potatoes. But not a handful to Lysula, look you!” she added sternly: Lysula was Yagna’s property. “Let her mistress feed her!”
“Oh, she does; and so well that the poor beast is bellowing for food, and eats the straw that’s under her!”
“She may starve, for aught I care: ’tis no loss of mine!” she said, with fierce animosity.
Vitek muttered some words and, when she had gone, fell back on his pallet, to doze for a few seconds more.
In the barn, upon the straw-strewn threshing-floor, lay the potatoes chosen for planting. She looked in there, and also into the shed close by, where all their farming-implements were stored. Then, having seen, as she did regularly each day, that nothing was missing or had been damaged during the night, she went out into the wheat-fields, where she continued her interrupted morning prayers.
Now that the sun had risen, there was as a blast of flame rushing through the orchard. The dews were dropping from the trees, the wind rustled softly in the boughs, the larks trilled forth their carols louder and louder. Folk began to move about, the waters of the millpond beat upon the banks, gates opened with a rusty creak, geese screamed, dogs yelped, and now and then a human voice was heard.
Folk were rising later than their wont. It was Sunday, and they were glad to rest their tired limbs a little longer.
Hanka prayed only with her lips: her thoughts were elsewhere. …
She gazed over those broad lands, bounded afar by the thick veil of the forest, which the flames of the eastern sky
