More than once she had thought to slip away home, but could not: it was too hard to leave the procession! So she remained with the others, but as bewildered as Lapa seeking his master in a crowd. She felt no inclination to go either with her mother or with her brother Simon, who had purposely slipped away with Nastka among the juniper-bushes on the road.—All these things had finally made her so furious that she would have liked to stone all the lot of them, with their silly grinning faces!
She was somewhat relieved that they had now left the forest on one side.
The last mound stood by the crossways, one of which ran straight down to the mill.
The sun had set, and a chilly wind blew from the lower levels. The priest, for whom Valek was waiting with a britzka, now hastened the service. They still went on singing, but with tired voices; the men asked in whispers about the farm which had been burnt at Eastertide, and whose blackened ruins they saw quite near; and they also gazed with curiosity at the Manor lands close at hand.
There the Squire was to be seen, riding about the fields on his sorrel horse; also some men who appeared to be measuring the ground with long rods. Close to the cross, just where the roads forked, and over against the burnt cornstacks, a large yellow britzka was to be seen.
“What may this mean?” someone asked.
“They are measuring the land, but do not look like surveyors.”
“Tradespeople, I dare say: they have not the air of farmers.”
“Of Germans, rather.”
“Aye, aye: dark-blue capotes, pipes in their mouths, and long trousers.”
They stared and whispered with great curiosity, not unmixed with a vague sense of uneasiness; and they were so taken up that they did not notice the blacksmith who quietly slunk away, crawling by the ditches until he got to the Squire.
“Are they buying the Podlesie farm, by any chance?”
“I certainly heard them say at Easter that the Squire was looking out for purchasers.”
“But Heaven protect us from such neighbours as the Germans!”
The procession was now over. The priest got into his britzka and drove off with the organist; while the people broke up into small parties, trudging slowly home, some by the road, some along various pathways and in Indian file, each taking the nearest way to his dwelling.
The dusk was gathering over the land and the carmine of the sunset sky passing higher up into a pallid green. From beyond the mill white vapours came rolling up in flocculent masses. Through the stillness now descending over the countryside, the klek-klek-klek of the stork resounded loud and sharp.
No human voices were heard there any longer, for the procession had quite melted away in the fields.
But soon the village became filled with sounds: on every side, they were coming noisily in. Every man made the sign of the holy cross on the threshold that he had quitted so long since; many a one fell prostrate before the holy images, sobbing for very fullness of heart.
And now there were fresh greetings, and the chattering of women and the prattle of infants, and many a narrative begun, interrupted by hot kisses and bursts of laughter. The women, flushed and blowzed, set the dishes before the poor sufferers, offered them food in plenty and pressed it on them with the utmost eagerness.
And so happy were they to be back again and with their families, that this made them forget all their past injuries, and the long months of their separation, and they again and again hugged their dear ones to their bosoms, asking them questions without end.
Then, after supper, they went out to look at the farmyard; and though it was growing dark, still they managed to go about the orchards and outhouses, patting their live stock, or stroking the heavy blossom-laden boughs, as though they were the heads of beloved children.
But it is quite impossible to describe the raptures of Lipka that evening.
With the exception, indeed—and a great one—of Boryna’s cabin.
The place was well-nigh deserted. Yagustynka had gone home to her people; Yuzka and Vitek had found some other hut where there was more company and greater merriment. Hanka remained apart in the dark dwelling, nursing her wailing child, and yielding at last to her anguish with bitter burning tears.
She was not, however, quite by herself. In the next room sat Yagna, in prey to the very same tortures, and like a bird beating its wings against the bars of its cage.
A strange fate it was that had fallen on both alike!
Yagna had arrived sooner than the rest, and, though sombre and black of looks as night, had set to work at once; had milked the cows, watered the calf, even fed the swine; and Hanka wondered, and could hardly believe her own eyes. But Yagna, indifferent to everyone, worked away with a sort of fury, as if to drown her misery in fatigue.
It would not do. Her arms dropped with lassitude, and she thought her back would break, but the tears welled up all the same, and trickled down her cheeks, and her distress and desolation only grew more and more.
Her eyes were so dim, she noted no one around her, not even Pete, who had been at her heels ever since she came home, eager to help, following her everywhere with his eyes, and often approaching so close that she unconsciously moved aside. And at last, when they were both in the granary heaping cut straw into a basket, he caught her by the waist, pushed her close against a partition wall, and sought her lips with a muttered ejaculation.
Engrossed as she was, and unsuspicious of anything more than the rough horseplay of a farmhand, perhaps rather pleased, too, at finding herself not so absolutely neglected, she suddenly saw his intent when he threw her down on the straw, and pressed his moist hot
