“Foolish one! I spoke but out of spite!” she thought, gazing sorrowfully after him. “To be so angry all at once with me!—Matthew!”
Rushing away through the orchard as if running for his life, he did not hear her call.
“That wasp! that vixen!” he growled, making straight for home now, anger and astonishment alternately uppermost in his mind. Before, she had always been so sweet, so mild! And now she had treated him like dirt. He felt the shame so keenly that he looked round to make sure no one had heard.
“And she reminded me of Teresa! Silly thing!—Teresa is naught to me—naught but a toy!—How her eyes blazed! In what a posture she set her arms!—Ah, it were no shame to be stung by such a one … if only the honey were forthcoming afterwards.” He was now close to his hut, and slackened his pace.
“She was angry that I alluded to the past.—But was I in the wrong? … As to Teresa”—here he made a wry face, as one who has gulped down vinegar—“I have enough of that crybaby. I have taken no oath to remain with her, have I? … The tail sticks to the cow, but I am no cow’s tail! … And then she has a goodman of her own; and I might get a public rebuke from the pulpit on her account. … Such a woman is the ruin of a man.—To the devil with women!” he concluded, in a most cantankerous mood.
Dinner was not ready at home. He scolded his sister for dawdling, and went in to Teresa, who was milking in the orchard, and raised to him very sad tearful eyes.
“Whimpering again? And wherefore?”
She excused herself, looking on him fondly.
“Pay more attention: the udder squirts milk upon your petticoat.”
Why was he so unkind, so hard to her today? she wondered. What had come over him? She was as gentle as could possibly be; yet he snapped her up fiercely at every word she said.
He seemed looking about the orchard for something, but ever and anon flung a furtive glance at her, and wondered more and more.
“Where had I mine eyes? … Such a paltry flabby thing! … Neither beauty nor savour! … Rawboned and sour-tasting! … Black as a gipsy, too; and of carriage, none whatever!”
True, her eyes, and they alone, were beautiful; perhaps as much so as Yagna’s: large, bright as a blue sky, and peering under black brows. But as often as he met them, he turned aside and swore softly to himself.
“She rolls her eyes like a calf!”
Those looks of hers made him impatient and angry.
“I will not see them, I will not!—Yes, yes, ogle as much as you like, ye will not catch me.”
They had dinner together, but he never spoke once to her, nor so much as glanced in her direction. To Nastka he spoke, indeed, but no pleasant words.
“A dog would not touch these groats: they are disgustingly burnt!”
“Only a little: just enough to have a taste.”
“Do not cross me!—And ye have put more flies than bacon-scratchings in them!”
“What, do you object to flies now? Don’t be so very dainty! They will not poison you.”
The cabbage dish, he then complained, had been cooked with rancid lard.
“Ye might as well have seasoned it with axle-grease!”
“You don’t know how that would taste? I do not, nor will I try,” she returned sharply.
But he continued to seek every occasion to grumble. Teresa was dumb all the time; so he set at her directly after dinner, seeing her cow rubbing herself at the corner of the hut.
“She’s filthy with dung, crusted all over: can ye not rub her down?”
“Our byre is wet, and she gets dirty there.”
“Wet, indeed!” he vociferated. “There are pine-boughs enough in the forest for dry fodder: but ye must wait for someone to collect them and bring them here to you. And the beasts might rot their flanks off with the dung meanwhile.—So many women in the hut, yet not a stiver’s worth of cleanliness!”
But Teresa never answered back; she durst not defend herself, and only begged his mercy with her eyes.
She was quiet and obedient, and as hardworking as an ant: she felt even glad to see him so masterful and high-handed with her! Which was precisely what angered him yet more. Those loving timorous eyes enraged him; so did her quiet footsteps, her humble mien, her way of following him about. He was on the point of crying out: “Away from my sight!”
“Blood of a dog!—Plague take it all!” he exclaimed at last; and, taking up his tools, without any after-dinner rest, he passed over to the Klembas’, where he had something to do about the hut.
They were all out in the yard, and at dinner still.
He sat down by the wall for a smoke.
The Klembas were talking of Gregory Boryna’s return from the army.
“What? home so soon?” he asked.
“Why, know ye not?” said old Klemba. “Together with Yasyek, Teresa’s goodman, and Yarchyk from Vola.”
“They are to be here in harvest-time. This morning, Teresa went to get the letter read by the organist, who told me about it.—That’s news for you, that Yasyek is returning!” he blurted out.
A silence followed. All eyes were fixed on vacancy, and the women, stifling their desire to laugh, turned very red. He gave no heed, and seemed pleased at the news, remarking tranquilly:
“ ’Tis well that he returns: now they will peradventure cease from slandering Teresa.”
Their spoons stopped, suspended in air over the dish, so confounded were they all. He looked round him, unabashed, and then added:
“Ye are well aware how little they spare her. She is naught to me but a distant relative on my father’s side. But if any dirty sneak should hint at anything else, I’d stop his mouth so that he’d never forget it! But women are the worst of all; they never spare another woman. Be she white as
