“Shall Dominikova get naught?”
“Later in the afternoon. Of course she shall. She’s to be dealt with as filth: with care and from afar. … Now take these things round separately, and waste no time in talk with other girls, for there is work at home for you.”
“Do give Nastka something: they are all so poor!” Yuzka said beseechingly. “They have scarce wherewith to buy salt!”
“Let her come: she shall get something.—Father, take this to Veronka; she was to have looked in yesterday.”
“She had to clean the miller’s cabin in the afternoon; they are expecting visitors.”
Hanka, having sent Yuzka off, and put on a warmer dress, ran out to see that the lads worked properly, and to assist Yagustynka.
To the old woman, now so strangely reticent, she said: “We hoped you would come back for supper.”
“What I saw was supper enough for me—and it lies on my stomach yet.”
“It was Agata, I believe?”
“Yes, poor thing! Passing away … and in Koziol’s hut!”
“Why is she not at the Klembas’?”
“Because those folk, as long as a kinsman asks for naught, or comes full-handed, allow him to claim kindred; but would set their dogs on any other, how near soever!”
“What say you? Surely they have not driven her out?”
“Well, she came to them on Saturday, and was taken with a sickness that same night. … They say that Klembova took away her featherbed, and turned her out almost naked.”
“Klembova? Can it be? So good a woman!—Nay, it must be a slander.”
“I invent naught, and tell you only what mine ears have heard.”
“At Koziol’s too! Who would have thought the woman so merciful?”
“ ‘For ready money—’tis strange, but true—even a priest will be kind to you!’—Koziol’s wife has got a score of zloty out of Agata in cash. For that sum she will keep her till she drops off—which she expects to do any day. … Funeral extra, of course.—She will give up the ghost one of these days: there will be no long waiting, oh, no!”
She broke down, unable to choke down a sob.
“What ails you, my dear?” Hanka asked, in a kindly tone.
“I have supped full of human woes, and have eaten over measure! One’s heart is not a stone; one tries to harden it by churlishness towards everyone; but it will not do. And there comes a time when it can bear no more, and crumbles away to sand with the pain of it!”
She burst into a tempest of tears, shaking all over; but, after a time, went on speaking, but with such heat and bitterness that the words burned into Hanka’s tender heart.
“And to this desolation there is no end—none! When the priest left Agata, I stayed by her side. Then there came one from over the water—Philip’s wife—crying out that her eldest daughter was a-dying. … Away I hurried to her.—Lord, what a hut! as cold as ice itself! Windowpanes gone, wisps of straw instead. Only one bed: the others sleep on litter, like kennelled dogs.—Aye, the girl is dying, but of what? Of hunger! Their last potato is eaten, their featherbed sold: every litre of groats is got from the miller by begging, for no one will lend aught to tide things over till harvest. Who could pay? Philip is in jail with the rest of them.—Scarcely had I left these, when Gregory’s wife told me that Florka Prychkova had been brought to bed and was in want of aid. … Vile wretches they are, and have defrauded me: but I went notwithstanding. In their hut, too, misery shows her teeth! Lots of children—Florka abed—not a kopek of savings—and no help from anywhither. True, the land is theirs: but can they eat it?—No one to cook for them. … And their land is untilled, for Adam, her goodman, is in prison likewise.—A son has been born to her—a strong lusty little fellow—but will he get food to live? Florka is thin as a lath—not one drop of milk can she give him; and their cow has but just calved. All is for the worst everywhere. No one to work, and no work to be got; and neither money nor help from any quarter. … Oh, would that our Lord might send all these poorest folk a merciful death! They would not then suffer so!”
“Has anyone in the village aught to spare?” said Hanka. “All are poor, and the cry of misery is heard everywhere.”
“ ‘Who has no goodwill shirks his duty still.’—I do not say this to you; the farm is not yours, and I know well what ye have to undergo. But there be those who might do something: the miller—the priest—the organist—and many others.”
“Perhaps they would, if they were but told of all,” Hanka said, taking their part.
“He that has a kindly heart needs no telling, and finds it out by himself. My dear, they are well aware of what the poor have to endure: it is on their very poverty that they thrive and grow fat. Why, ’tis now the miller’s harvest-home, when folk are crowding round him for flour and groats, giving up their last mite to him, or taking loans at high interest, to be paid in future work: money for food must be found, even should one be forced to sell one’s bed to the Jew!”
“Indeed, no one is willing to give things gratis,” Hanka said with a heavy sigh, as the memory of her recent past surged up.
“I sat with Florka for a long time,” Yagustynka went on to say; “and many women came in, telling us what was going on in Lipka. They said—”
“Mercy on us!” Hanka suddenly exclaimed, starting to her feet.
