All through Lipka, besides, there now began to be a good deal of unusual movement: folk splashing along in the mud, and carts clattering in from other villages, all crowding to church for their Easter confession, in spite of the detestable roads and the dismal weather, so wretchedly changeable! Every now and then there came a flaw of rain, and then a warm breeze would blow athwart the orchards, or frozen snow pour down like groats, or the sun look smiling out of the clouds and scatter its gold over all the world. But the weather is usually so in the first days of spring—like a young lass that laughs and cries, and is blithe or sullen, just as it occurs to her, and she herself cannot tell why.
But no one in Hanka’s surroundings had any care for the weather just now: work and talk went on with equal noise. Ambrose bustled about, and kept the others lively with his merry jests. He was obliged, however, to pay frequent visits to the church and see that everything there was going on well: on his return, he would complain of the cold and want something to warm him up.
“I have so well beset the priests with penitents, that neither will stir till noon,” he said.
“Of the priest from Slupia they say,” Yagustynka observed, after a gibe at the incumbent of Laznov which nettled Ambrose not a little, “that he always bears a scent-bottle with him, for that he dislikes the scent of common folk, and fans himself with his handkerchief after every confession.”
“You hold your peace, and let priests alone!” Ambrose cried out in a rage.
“Is Roch in church?” Hanka hastened to inquire; she too disliked the old woman’s waspish tongue.
“He has been there all the morning, serving Masses, and putting things in order.”
“And where is Michael, then?”
“Gone to Rzepki with the organist’s son, to make out the confession-list.”
“ ‘Plough with a goose-quill, sow paper with sand: ye will get much more pelf than by tilling the land!’ ” muttered Yagustynka.
“Truly it is so. He gets an egg at least for each name he puts down.”
“And the confession-tickets come to a kopek and a half! No wonder his wallets are crammed with good things. Last week the organist’s wife sold near upon fifteen hundred eggs.”
“Folk say they came on foot, carrying only one small bundle with them: now they could fill over four of the biggest wagons.”
Ambrose tried to defend him. “Well, but he has lived and worked here for a score of years and more; and the parish is a big one; and he is hardworking, shrewd and thrifty: of course he has put money by.”
“Put money by! Money wrung from the people, and as much as he possibly could! Ere the man will do a service to anyone, he must know what he’s to get thereby. Why, he is paid thirty roubles at a funeral: for what?—for thumping on the organ and bleating Latin chants!”
“At any rate, he’s a skilled craftsman in his own line, and takes great pains to do his best.”
“Aye, aye, he is skilled: knows when to sing shrill and when gruff—and especially how to diddle folk out of their money.”
“Another would have drunk away all his earnings; and he is breeding up his son to become a priest.”
“To his own exceeding glory and profit,” the rancorous beldame rejoined.
At this most interesting point they broke off. Yagna had come in, and stood petrified on the threshold.
“Is it our pig’s size that amazes you?” Yagustynka asked, with a laugh.
“Could ye not have done this work on the other side?” she stammered, red as a peony. “My room is all befouled with it.”
“Wash and scour it, then! Ye are not short of time,” Hanka replied coolly, with a stress on the last words.
Yagna made an angry gesture, but said no more. She walked about the room, took up her “Rosary of the Passion,” threw a shawl over her yet unmade bed, and left the hut in silence, her lips twitching with the fury she sought to hide.
Yuzka, who met her in the passage, said: “Ye might well help us, we have so much to do!”
She only stormed at her in reply, and rushed away in a frenzy. Vitek, who had remarked which way she had gone, said she had stepped over straight to the blacksmith’s.
“Why should she not? It will relieve her to talk of her grievance.”
“But,” Yagustynka said, lowering her voice, “ye will have him here speedily … and it will be war!”
“Good woman, what’s my whole life but warfare?” Hanka answered quietly, but she felt that her words were true, and that a savage quarrel was at hand.
“He will come in a trice,” Yagustynka declared, not without compassion.
“Fear not—I shall stand the brunt of the battle,” she replied, smiling.
Yagustynka, nodding her admiration, looked significantly at Ambrose, who had just laid his work aside.
“I must look in at church and ring the Angelus,” he said. “I shall be back for dinner directly.”
And so he was, and told them that the clergymen were dining, and the miller had brought them a netful of fish as a present, and they were to go on hearing confessions in the afternoon, as so many people were waiting.
The dinner, though short and hurried, was well provided with liquor, Ambrose complaining bitterly that, for such herrings—salt as Lot’s wife—the vodka was far too weak. Then they set to work again, and he quartered the beast, cutting off the parts fit for sausages; while Yagustynka, having unhinged a door and made it do duty for a table, placed the sides upon it, and was busy cutting them into flitches and salting them carefully. Just at that moment the smith came in; his face showed that he was fighting for
