“Nay, take it back: I shall manage.”
“Here, I can add half a rouble more. Take it,” she begged him in a whisper.
“Nay. But thanks notwithstanding. It is exceeding kind of you.”
“There, then: here are thirty zloty all told: pray take them!” She looked into her moneybag, counting out five-kopek bits and keeping down her tears. It was a hard sacrifice for her; every coin she told out gave her a sharp pang.
The money glittered very temptingly in the sun. His eyes shone with desire as he gloated over them; they were all new bright pieces. But, heaving a deep sigh, he mastered himself with a great effort, and said to her:
“Hide all that carefully, or folk may see it, and peradventure rob you.”
She still went on imploring him in a low voice; but he said no more, and she slowly put her treasures back again.
“Wherefore will ye not dwell with us?” he asked her, after a while.
“How can I? I am good for nothing, not even to follow the geese—I am very weak, expecting my end day by day. It would truly be more pleasant to die amongst one’s own kinsfolk: much more. Yea, even in the stall where the heifer has been.—And I have forty zloty ready for my burial: perhaps ’twould also suffice for a Mass … as befits a farmer’s kinswoman! … I should leave my featherbed to you. … Fear ye not: I should fall asleep quietly amongst you, and sooner than ye expect; very soon. …” she faltered anxiously, waiting with a throbbing heart for him to say: “Stay with us!”
He did not, but made as if he had not followed the drift of her rambling talk; and stretched himself, and yawned, and walked uneasily about before the hut, the barn, the hayrick. …
She sobbed and moaned plaintively. “How could he, indeed? He, a husbandman of such repute—and I, a wretched beggar-woman!”
And thereupon she started on her daily search for some place in the village where she could die in good odour, as a respectable peasant-woman.
On and on she crawled to find some such nook, and ever drifting about like gossamer in the gale, to stick fast no one knows where.
People joked about her, and enjoyed saying that she ought to stay with her family, and telling the Klembas, with mock friendship:
“Why, she is of your family, and she has money for her funeral besides, and then she will not trouble you very long. Where else should she be but with you?”
Dame Klemba thought of those words, when her goodman told her at night of what Agata had said that day. They were in bed at the time, their children had begun to snore, and she whispered to persuade him:
“There will be room for her. … She may lie in the hay. … Or we shall drive the geese out into the shed.—For her food, she wants next to naught. … And she cannot drag on very long. … Moreover, she will be buried at her own cost.—So people will not speak against us. … And then, the featherbed would be ours: we could not easily get such another one.” This she pointed out to him very eagerly.
In answer, Klemba merely snored at the time; but in the morning he said:
“If Agata were quite destitute, I should take her in; it were then God’s will, and I could not do otherwise. But, as things stand, they will say we have taken her in for the sake of what she leaves us. As it is, they blame us for having let her go and beg.—Nay, it cannot be.”
Klembova obeyed her husband in all things, but she sighed bitterly over the featherbed lost to them, and got up to hurry the girls out to their work; for that day they had to plant the cabbages.
It was then May weather at its best. The breeze blew, stirring the corn in rippling waves. The orchards whispered as they waved, and shook down their blossoming petals; and heavy clusters of lilac and bird-cherry blossoms filled the air with perfume. From the fields, songs came borne on the wind; and in the smithy, the hammer rang on the anvil. Since morning, the roads had been full of people and racket, and the women wended their way to the cabbage patches, bearing young plants with them in sieves and baskets.
Before the morning dew was quite dry, the black fields, cut into many a furrow full of water sparkling in the sunshine, were dappled all over with red aprons and skirts.
Dame Klemba went with her daughters, the while her goodman with his sons were helping Matthew to repair their cabin.
Old Klemba, however, presently finding the sun too hot, called Balcerek and went over to see Boryna.
“A fine day, friend,” he said, taking a pinch from Balcerek’s snuffbox.
“Splendid. But let’s hope this great heat will not last.”
“Rain is falling on all sides: our turn must come soon.”
“Yet it looks like drought: the trees are covered with insects.”
“And the vegetables, how late they have come up! A drought would destroy them. But, by God’s grace, it may not come to that.”
“Well, and what of the fair? Any news of your horse?”
“I gave the police officer three roubles, and he gave me promises.”
“We have naught in safety! We live in constant alarm, as hares do, and there’s no help for it.”
“Our Voyt is a mere figurehead,” suggested Balcerek, in low cautious tones.
“We ought,” Klemba
