And now Yagna had scarcely risen and donned her petticoat, when the door creaked, and in he walked with stealthy steps, straight to the bed where old Boryna lay, and peered into his eyes.
“Not a word yet?”
“As he was, so he is!” Yagna said bluntly, putting her hair up under her kerchief.
She was barefoot and scantily attired, still rather drowsy, and overflowing with the strange charm that came forth from her like rays of heat; he could not help eyeing her through his half-closed lids with a greedy stare.
“Do you know,” he said, coming close to her, “the old fellow must have a goodly lot of money here? The organist told me that, even before last Yuletide, Boryna was ready to lend a cool hundred roubles to a man in Debitsa, and the loan only failed because he wanted too high a rate of interest. He must have it somewhere here, hidden away in the cabin.—So keep an eye on Hanka! … And ye might take a quiet look round at your leisure. …”
“Why not?” she said, throwing her apron over her bare arms, for she felt his glances upon her.
He walked about the room, peeping absently behind the pictures that hung on the walls.
“Have you the key of the storeroom?” he asked, with a sly look at the small closed door just by.
“It hangs by the cross near the window.”
“About a month since, I lent him a chisel which I want now, but can find it nowhere about. I think it is in there, thrown somewhere amongst odds and ends.”
“Look for it yourself. I am not going to seek it for you.”
Suddenly, hearing Hanka’s voice in the passage, he drew back from the larder-door and hung the key up again.
“Then I shall look in tomorrow,” he said, taking his cap. “Has Roch been here?”
“How should I know? Ask Hanka.”
He lingered on a little, scratching his fell of red hair, while his eyes darted to and fro with a furtive expression; then, smiling to himself, he walked out.
Yagna, throwing off her apron, then set about making the bed, now and then glancing at her husband, but taking good care never to meet his open ever-staring eyes.
She loathed and feared and hated him indeed for all the ill he had done to her, and when he called her and stretched out his clammy hands to hers, she felt an agony of repugnance and dread: such a waft of death and the grave emanated from the man! And yet, in spite of all, it was perhaps she who most sincerely wished him to live on.
For she only now realized what she had to lose by his death. With him she had felt herself the mistress; all obeyed her; and the other women, willing or not, had to give her the first place. Why? Only because she was Boryna’s wife. And Matthias, though choleric and hard upon her at home, paid her every attention in the presence of others, and made them all respect her.
This she had never seen clearly until Hanka had swooped down on the hut and got the upper hand there; then, at last, she felt herself helpless and ill-treated.
For the land she cared not one whit: what was the land to her? Nothing at all. And though she had been used to give orders, and plume herself on her importance and pride herself on her riches, still she was well enough off at home not to grieve much over their loss. What stung her to the quick was that she must give way to Hanka—to Antek’s wife; that it was which she felt intolerable, and which roused all her malice and antagonism.
Her mother, too, together with the blacksmith, was continually egging her on. Else perhaps she might soon have given up the fight; for all those petty bickerings wearied her so, that she would gladly have thrown up everything and gone back to her mother.
But Dominikova had replied sternly: “Never, while he is alive! You must see after your husband; your place is there!”
So she had stayed on, though with dissatisfaction inexpressible: no one to speak to, to smile at, or to call upon!
At home she had that ghastly man by her; and Hanka ever ready for strife; and war—war—war beyond all bearing!
She would sometimes take her distaff the round of the cabins—but that too was an unbearable ordeal. There were only women in the village, dull, heavy, lachrymose, or stormy and boisterous like a day in March: nothing but complaints everywhere, and not one farm-lad in sight!
And now her thoughts began to go back to Antek.
True, she had, in the last days preceding the catastrophe, felt greatly estranged towards him, had never met him but with pain and terror, and been in the end so treated that the very memory was gall and wormwood. But then, she had always had him waiting behind the hayrick in the evening, if she cared to see anyone. … In spite, then, of the fear of discovery and his frequent reproaches for her delay, she had gone willingly, forgetful of all the world, when he would seize her in his arms—no permission asked—the fiery monster that he was!
And now she was alone: quite, quite alone! The patient follower, the persistent watcher, the masterful lover, was there no more. The Voyt indeed caressed her, dallied with her among the hedgerows, or went with her for drinks to the tavern, and would fain have taken Antek’s place. But she only allowed him such liberties because they flattered her senses, and there was no one else at hand: who could compare him with Antek?
Besides, she had another motive in this: to flout the village—and Antek not less!
Ah! in the last three days after the fight, how shamefully he had slighted her! Had he not sat all day, all night, at the old man’s bedside, nay, even slept upon
