They then both fell to lamenting over their sad fate.
“When Staho was here, I thought nothing of all he did at home. When the husband is gone, ah! then one knows what a help he is!—Are you going to town?”
“Certainly; I should have gone before, but Roch told me that visits would not be allowed until Eastertide. Therefore shall I go on Sunday, and take my poor husband a few morsels of our Hallow-fare.”
“I fain would do the same for mine; but what have I to take to him? A mouthful of bread?”
“Be easy; I will prepare enough for them both; and we shall take it together.”
“God reward you for your kindness; I will work for you in return.”
“Do not speak of work in return: ’tis a gift I make you from my heart.” She lowered her voice. “Well do I know poverty: it is a dog whose teeth bite deep.”
“And that is so faithful and attached that it never will leave us till we die!—I thought I had a little money laid by, and hoped to purchase a pig in spring, and fatten it up, with no small profit when autumn came. Well, I had to give all to Staho, and my savings have run out like water: I have naught now. That is what comes of his standing up for the rights of our folk!”
“Nay, say not so. He went freely to protect them, and an acre or so of the wood will be yours.”
“Will be! Aye, but ‘while the grass grows, the steed starves!’ And ‘To him that can pay, the musicians play.’ But ‘Poor man, coin to money your sweat, and be glad that ye ever have eat!’ ”
“Are ye greatly in want?” she inquired, hesitatingly.
“I have naught in the world,” she cried, flinging out her hands in despair, “but what the Jew or the miller will give me on credit!”
“Would I could help you! But the homestead where I dwell is not mine. I am baited as with dogs around me, and must take such heed lest they drive me from the cabin that I am at times clean out of my wits.”
The previous night’s experience came back to her forcibly.
“Meantime,” her sister put in, “Yagna takes no care. She is a shrewd one, she, and enjoys herself to the full!”
“How so?”
She had risen from her seat, and was looking at her sister with alarm. Had Yagna found and taken the money?
“Oh, she only takes what pleasure she can get out of life: dresses well, calls on her good friends, and has seven holidays a week. She was seen sitting with the Voyt in the tavern parlour yesterday, and the Jew could not fetch them drinks fast enough!”
“Everything must come to an end,” Hanka muttered sullenly, tying her apron over her head to go.
“True: but then ‘Pleasure, once taken, cannot be snatched from you’—and she knows it.”
“ ’Tis easy to be wise in that way, if one has naught to care about!—But, Veronka, we are to kill the pig today: come you this evening to help.” And, cutting short her sister’s everlasting complaints, she made her way out.
Her father, who was now in the room she had once occupied, lay moaning and almost hidden under a heap of straw.
“What ails ye, Father?”
She sat down by his side.
“Nothing, my dear daughter, nothing: only the ague shakes me sorely, and my inwards are wrung and twisted.”
“Because ’tis here as wet and as cold as out of doors. Rise and come over to us; ye can tend the children. And then—we shall kill the pig … if so be as ye have a mind to eat of it?”
“To eat? Aye, a little. They forgot to give me any food yesterday.—I shall come, Hanka, I shall come!” And he sighed, but with pleasure, as he crept out of the straw bed.
Hanka, her mind full of the thought of Yagna, walked over to the tavern as fast as she could.
The Jew no longer exacted payment in advance, but with the most obsequious eagerness weighed and measured out all she wanted, setting out many another article besides, to tempt her.
She was very short with him. “Yankel!” she said haughtily; “give what I ask, and no more. I am no child, and know what I wish to have.”
But the Jew only smiled. She had bought things for between ten and twenty zloty, and also enough vodka to suffice for the coming festival of Easter besides; and rolls in scores, and loaves of fine bread, and eight salt herrings … and even, to crown all, a small bottle of rum. Hardly could she carry the parcel, when made up.
“What! That Yagna enjoys herself: and I, who work so hard, am I to be worse off than a dog?”
But, though such was her thought on setting out, it was speedily followed by remorse. The expense was unnecessary.—But for shame, she would have made the Jew take the rum back again.
She found everybody in the cabin busy preparing things. Ambrose sat by the fire, exchanging verbal thrusts with Yagustynka, who was engaged in scalding the various vessels to be used; and the room was full of steam.
“We were waiting for you, to knock your little pig on the head!”
“Ye have arrived very early!”
“I made Roch take my place in the sacristy; the priest’s manservant is to blow the organ-bellows, and Magda will sweep out the church. I have arranged everything, so that you may not be disappointed. The priests will not begin hearing confessions till they have finished breakfast.—But how cold it is today!” he cried out querulously; “I feel it to the very marrow.”
“Broiling at the fire, can you talk of the cold?” Yuzka cried out in amazement.
“You are silly: I feel so cold within, that even my wooden leg’s
