“Hold your peace, woman!” the Voyt interposed, “or I’ll send you off to jail first!”
“Lock up your own mad dog, ’tis your duty; tie up your wife with a rope, lest she bite!” Kozlova screamed, exasperated.
“Woman!” he shouted, threatening her. “When I speak, do respect my office!”
“I spit on your office”—but the words used were bolder far—“do you understand me? He threaten, he?—Look at him! He may just as well have stolen the stuff himself to get his light-o’-love a smock! Why, the money of the community is all gone that way; you have drunk it all, you toss-pot!—Oh, we know about your doings, never fear!—Aye, you too, my lord the Voyt, will lie in jail!”
This was the last straw: both of them flew at her like wolves. The Voyt’s wife hit her first with her stick across the face, and then, with a savage cry, went at her with her nails, while the Voyt belaboured her wherever he could find a place.
Bartek flew instantly to the rescue of his wife.
They all three closed together like fighting dogs; no one could tell whose fists, whose heads, were seen whirling through the air, nor whose voices were bellowing. From fence to road, from road to fence, they went staggering and tossing like sheaves blown along in a great wind, till in their fury of fighting they fell to the ground on a sandheap.
Plunging in a cloud of dust, they were audible still with their imprecations and invectives; but presently they got out into the road, fighting and shrieking at the top of their voices.
At times one or other of them fell apart, and now and then they were all upon their feet; then, clutching one another by the hair, or the throat, or the nape of the neck, they began the battle again.
But all the village was soon aroused by the noise; women came hovering helplessly around the battlefield; and at last men arrived and separated the combatants.
But the curses and imprecations and wailings and threats went on, and were beyond all description. The neighbours made off at once, fearing they might be called in to bear witness: but throughout the village the whisper went that the Voyt and his wife had given the Koziols a fearful thrashing.
A few minutes later, the Voyt, with a swollen face, drove off accompanied by his wife, also much battered and scratched, to depose against their enemies.
About an hour afterwards, the Koziols started likewise: old Ploshka having very kindly offered to take them to town gratis—to pay out the Voyt for siding with the Squire.
They went to make their complaint, just as they were at the end of the fight, and without doing anything to make themselves more presentable.
They drove slowly through the village, telling everybody, as they went, about their ill-treatment, and showing the wounds received.
Koziol’s head was cut open to the bone, so that his face, neck, and breast, visible through a rent in his shirt, were all covered with blood. The hurt was in reality not great; but at every moment he would press his side and moan:
“My God! I can bear no more! He has broken every one of my ribs!—Help, good people, help! or I die!”
His wife then took up the lament.
“He took a club to beat him with!—Ah, poor man! be easy; you have had much to suffer, but there’s justice to punish ruffians, there is! … Yes, he meant to slay my man, and folk had hard work to prevent him from doing it: as they will all testify in court.” These explanations she would frequently interrupt with dreadful howls. Indeed, she was disfigured almost past recognition: bareheaded, with tufts of hair torn out scalp and all, her ears torn and bleeding, her eyes running blood, and her whole face clawed, scratched, harrowed like a field. And though all knew well what a “daisy” the woman was, the sight roused pity in many a heart.
“Dear, dear! ’twas too bad to treat them so horribly!”
“A sin and a shame it is! They have been well-nigh killed.”
“Aye, they have been frightfully beaten. But is aught forbidden to my lord the Voyt?—Such an official, such a great man?” Ploshka put in maliciously, addressing the people.
They were completely bewildered, and remained astounded and upset long after the Koziols had passed out of sight.
Teresa, who had taken cover during the fray, did not show her face till both parties had gone.
She looked in at the Koziols’, Bartek being distantly related to her. No one was in; but the three little children that Kozlova had just brought with her from Warsaw, sat outside the cabin, huddled together, greedily devouring some half-boiled potatoes, defending their food from the pigs with their spoons, and crying out at them. They were so wretched, so miserably neglected, so filthily dirty, that her heart pitied them, and she took them into the passage, and shut them in from their foes; then she ran off to tell the news.
At the Golabs’, there was no one but Nastka.
Matthew had, before breakfast, gone over to Staho (Bylitsa’s son-in-law) to look over the ruined hut and see if anything could be done with it. The old man, too, was with him, now and then stammering a word or two. Mr. Yacek, sitting as usual at the threshold, smoked a cigarette and whistled to the doves that circled about over the cherry-trees.
Noontide was not far off.
The heated air was quivering over the fields like rippling water; the fields and orchard-grounds basked delightedly in the sunbeams; now and again, a blossom fell from Bylitsa’s cherry-trees, flickering down like a white little butterfly.
It was well past noon when Matthew had finished his examination. While still poking the timbers here and there, he gave sentence:
“ ’Tis all rotten wood, crumbling to dust: ye can build nothing with it. Quite useless.”
“Perchance,” Staho said anxiously, “I might buy some new timber, and then. …”
“Ye’d require timber for a whole cabin. Not one beam
