“Thresholds, say ye? Nay, within doors, and choking the life out of us!”
“Have you let the sow loose?”
“She is lying by the wall.—A splendid farrow, and each one as round as a roll.”
Here Bylitsa appeared in the doorway.
“I have left the geese among the gooseberry-bushes,” he said.—“Well, who should come to me at Easter but Mr. Yacek, saying: ‘I will live with you, Bylitsa, be your lodger, and pay you well’? I thought he was flouting me, as the gentry are wont to flout the peasant folk; so I replied: ‘Oh, I don’t mind getting a little money, and I have a room to spare.’—He laughed, gave me a packet of snuff (prime Petersburg quality), looked round my place and said: ‘If you can abide here, so can I; and I’ll fix up your hut so that it will soon look like one of our houses’!”
“Well, I declare!” said the old woman in amazement. “Such a great man—own brother to the Squire!”
“So he made himself a bed of straw beside mine—and there you are! When I went out, he was on the doorstep, smoking a cigarette, and throwing some corn to sparrows.”
“But what will he have to eat?”
“He has some pots with him, and is continually making and drinking tea.”
“There must be something underneath all this. One so high-placed would not do this without some reason.”
“The reason is that he has lost his reason! All men seek and strive to better themselves: why should one such as he strive to be worse off? Only because his wits are gone,” said Hanka, raising her head, for voices were heard within the enclosure.
They were coming back from the christening. Yuzka opened the march, with the baby, swaddled in a pillow, and covered with a shawl; then came Dominikova escorting it, then the Voyt and Ploshkova, the godfather and godmother; and, last of all, Ambrose limping along after them.
But before entering, Dominikova took up the child, and, crossing herself, carried it all round the cabin, stopping at each corner according to some old prehistoric rite, and saying:
“From the East cometh Wind.
“From the North cometh Cold.
“From the West cometh Night.
“From the South cometh Heat.
“And on every side, O human soul, beware of evil, and put thy trust in God alone.”
“H’m!” laughed the Voyt; “that Dominikova seems such a pious one, but she’s a famous warlock all the same!”
“Truly,” Ploshkova replied, “prayers do good; but all know that a few charms thrown in do no hurt.”
They entered all together. Dominikova undid the child, and put it, stark naked and red as a crayfish, into its mother’s arms.
“O Mother, we bring you a real Christian, who in holy baptism has received the name of Roch. May he live and thrive and be your consolation!”
“And may he beget a dozen young Rochs! A roaring fellow he is! No need was there to pinch him at christening; and how he spat the salt out!”
The little one was wailing and kicking out its legs upon the featherbed. Dominikova wiped its eyes and mouth and forehead with some drops of vodka; and only then did she allow Hanka to take it to her breast. To this it at once turned, clung ravenously, and was hushed.
Hanka then thanked the godfather and godmother very heartily, kissing them and the others present, and excusing herself that the christening was not such as befitted the son of a Boryna.
“Then have another one next year,” said the Voyt, merrily, wiping his moustache, for the vodka glass was coming his way; “and that one will make up for this.”
Here Ambrose blurted out thoughtlessly: “A christening without the father is like a sin without absolution!”
This opened the floodgates of Hanka’s grief, until the women presently drank to comfort her, and gathered her into their arms with great compassion. Presently she was soothed, begged their pardons, and asked them to take something to eat. And, indeed, a great dish of scrambled eggs and minced sausage was spreading its fragrance through the air.
It was Yagustynka who served the visitors, for Yuzka was crooning to the newborn child, rocking it to sleep in the large kneading-trough, for the old cradle had lost its rockers.
Long did spoon after spoon go tinkling into the dish, nobody speaking the while.
Children were crowding outside in the passage, and more and more little heads came peeping into the room; so the Voyt flung a handful of caramels out into the yard to them, for which they had many a scramble and fight.
“Why, even Ambrose has lost his tongue,” Yagustynka said, being the first to speak.
“Ah, he is thinking of a farm for our man-child to run … and a girl for him to court!”
“To find the land is the father’s business: to find the girl be ours,” said the godfather.
“Of them there is no lack at all. They are thrown at your heads, with a dowry besides for the one ye may choose!”
“I fancy the Voyt’s wife is thinking of another child: I saw her the other day airing her dead babe’s clothes on the hedgerow.”
“Belike the Voyt has promised her a christening in autumn.”
“And, being such an able official, has surely not forgotten the needful for its fulfilment.”
“Oh, yes,” he answered gravely; “to be cheerful, a cabin must have a racket of children!”
“They do indeed give much trouble, but are pledges of hope and comfort.”
“Very fine!” growled Yagustynka.—“But even gold may be bought too dear!”
“True, some children are evil, and set their parents at naught. But ’tis a hard law: ‘As the dam is, so the lamb is’; and ‘one reaps what one has sown,’ ” Dominikova replied.
Yagustynka, feeling the application of the words to herself, was infuriated.
“Ye may well jeer at others, having such gentle boys, who spin and milk and wash the pots as well as the best-trained wench.”
“Because they have been bred up in the right way—the way of obedience.”
“And they are as like their father as any picture—even to offering their
