“A priest!”
She raised her eyes and looked at him in admiration. He sat down on the foremost seat, but with his back to the horses.
“By this means, I shall see Lipka awhile longer!” he exclaimed, casting a fond glance on the lichen-covered roof of his house, and on the orchards around, all bathed in dew and overladen with blossoms.
The horses trotted off.
Yagna went after the britzka, Yanek once more bidding farewell to his sisters in tears in front of the house, but gazing only on those moist azure eyes, wonderful as the sky on a May day, which looked into his; on that fair head, crowned with braided locks that went three times round and ended in curves about her ears; and on that face, so white, so dainty, so … just like a wild rose!
She walked along, fascinated by the look in his bright eyes. Her lips were quivering so, that she could not close her mouth. And how her heart was beating! and how humbly she followed him with her eyes, almost swooning for the marvellous sweetness that flooded her! A strange drowsy feeling came over her, and a soporific fragrance seemed to be blunting her senses. …
It was only after the britzka had turned off to the poplar road, and their eyes could no longer meet, that she awoke with a shock to the dreary emptiness of all around her, and ceased to follow him. Yanek had waved a last farewell with his cap, and they had disappeared in the shades of the poplars.
She rubbed her eyes, waking as it were from a dream.
“Lord, Lord!” she ejaculated; “such eyes might draw one down to hell!
“An organist’s son! … And looks like a young Squire! … A priest, a priest! … Perchance he will be sent to Lipka!”
Again she looked round; but the britzka, though not yet unheard, was no longer in sight.
“Such a mere stripling! Almost a boy! … And yet, when he looks at me, I feel it like an embrace, and grow dizzy.”
She shivered slightly, licked her scarlet lips, and stretched herself stiff, with voluptuous zest.
Suddenly she shuddered. Her head and feet were bare: she noted it only now. And she was almost undressed—only in her smock, with a tattered shawl on her shoulders!
She blushed for shame, and started for home by the most unfrequented paths.
“Know ye that the lads are coming?” girls and women and children called out to her from within their enclosures. They were all breathless with the gladness of the tidings.
“Coming or not, what is the difference?—The fools!” she murmured, annoyed at the mad joy they all felt at their husbands’ return.
She looked in at her mother’s. Only Andrew was at home. That day he had left his bed for the first time, and his broken leg was still in bandages. He was sitting on the doorstep, weaving a basket, and whistling to the magpies that hopped about.
“Yagna, do you know? Our folk are coming home!”
“All day long naught else have I heard!”
“And Nastka is simply crazy over Simon’s return!”
“Why?” Her eyes flashed sternly; they had her mother’s steely glance.
“Oh, for no reason! … My leg is hurting me again,” he faltered, frightened to have betrayed a secret. “Be quiet, plaguy ones!” he vociferated, throwing a stick at a number of cackling hens.
Then he pretended to rub his leg, and looked with anxiety into her strangely louring face.
“Where is Mother?”
“Gone to the priest’s.—Yagna! About Nastka … I … I said … what I should not. …”
“You ass! To think none knows of that!—They’ll marry, and there’s the end of it.”
“But—will Mother let them? Nastka has but one acre.”
“If he asks, she will refuse. But he is old enough to know what to do, and how to do it.”
“He is, Yagna. And if he fall out with Mother and be disobedient and marry in despite of her, then he will take his share of the land, and settle down on it.”
“Talk ye and gabble as much as you like; but take heed lest Mother hear you.”
She felt out of temper. What! that Nastka! she too, to have a sweetheart and rejoice with the others! Each one was returning to his own darling today: she raged at the thought.
“Yes, yes, they all are coming back!”
But then a sudden thrill of excitement filled her mind!—Leaving Andrew, who remained in great awe of her, she went straight back to her cabin, to smarten herself up like the others for the homecoming, and like them, too, to await the freed prisoners with feverish anxiety.
She made her toilet with great care, singing the while for joy and longing, and running out at times to look down the road towards which they all were turned.
“And whom are your eyes seeking?” was the unexpected question put to her by someone.
Her arms dropped to her sides, as a bird’s broken wings, and a cruel agitation fluttered her heart.
Truly, whom had her eyes to seek? No one was hastening back to her.—“Only Antek, peradventure!” she murmured low, and heaved a sigh, while remembrances rose up in her mind, as of a wonderful dream, but dreamt, ah! so long ago!
“Yet the smith told me only yesterday that he would not be set free with the others, but lie in prison for many a year.”
“But if perchance he is freed—what then?” She said the words again, as if her soul were bent on expecting him. Nevertheless, it was not with joy or exultation: rather with a lurking sense of distaste.
“What though he comes?” she said, pettishly; “he is nothing to me now!”
At that moment old Boryna gabbled inarticulately. It was, she knew, his way of asking for food, but she turned her back on him with aversion.
“Die and have done with it!” she said with a sudden burst of spite, and went out into the porch not to see the man.
Down at the pond, there were batlets beating the linen, and washermaidens showing crimson through the green boughs. A dry breeze just moved
