Balcerek gave him a warning look; but he went on, excitedly:
“He brings the village to shame.—Have ye heard what he did yesterday?”
“Oh, his brawl? that’s naught.—But there’s more, and we may have to pay dear for his spell in office.”
“But there are checks on him: the cashier, the scrivener, the rest of the council.”
“Like dogs set to watch over meat! Aye, they’ll watch so well that we peasants will have in the end to pay for their negligence.”
“What’s to be done?—Any other news?”
Balcerek spat and tossed up his hand; he cared little to talk, being a cross-grained man, and henpecked besides, which made him still more taciturn.
They arrived at Boryna’s. In the porch, Yuzka was peeling potatoes.
“Ye may go in; Father is lying there alone. Hanka is out planting cabbages, and Yagna working at her mother’s.”
The room looked very empty. A lilac-bough now and then peeped in at the window, and the sunlight filtered in through the verdure outside.
The old man lay as usual, but much emaciated, with his grey beard bristling all over his discoloured cheeks. His head was still bandaged, and his ashen lips were moving as if to speak.
They greeted him. No answer, no movement in reply.
“Do ye not know us?” said Klemba, taking his hand.
He seemed totally unconscious, or lost in rapt listening to the twittering swallows, building their nests under his thatch, or the brustling of the leaves against the wall outside.
“Matthias!” Klemba said, shaking him slightly.
The sick man started, his eyelids quivered, he looked round at them.
“Do ye hear?—This is Klemba, this Balcerek, your companions: surely ye know us!”
They waited a little, gazing into his eyes.
“Boys!” he cried suddenly, in a thundering voice. “See me here alone! To the rescue! Smite them, those sons of dogs! smite them!” He raised his arms as to ward off a blow, and fell back on his bed.
At the cry, Yuzka rushed in, and put fresh moist bandages on his head. And now, once more, he lay quite motionless: in his wide-open eyes there gleamed an expression of intense fear.
They went away, distressed and disheartened.
“Why,” said Klemba, “he is no longer a living man … he’s a corpse!”
Vitek’s stork was stalking about the orchard; the wind now and then swept the branches into the open windows to shade them.
Back they went, plunged in sad silent thought, as if they had been to visit a grave.
“We must all come to this!” Klemba said at last.
“Truly,” sighed the other. “He has perished, and others gain thereby.”
“ ‘A goat dies once, and then—never again!’ ”
“We too shall follow him shortly.”
And they looked with hardening eyes at the world around; at the waving corn; at the forest, clear-cut and plain in the distance; at the green-growing fields, and at the bright warm day of springtide: and their spirits settled down in a stony resignation to the will of God.
“No; man cannot shun what is to be.”
And so they parted.
Others, too, both on that day and afterwards, came to visit the dying man: but he recognized no one, and at last they came no longer.
The priest had said: “All he needs is prayers for a speedy departure.”
And as everyone was full of his own cares and troubles, they naturally forgot him, or spoke of him as of one dead.
Who was there, indeed, to take thought of him?
There were even days when he remained without a drop of water, and might have died of starvation, but for the kind heart of Vitek, who would snatch up anything he could get and take it to “Master”; and he would sometimes milk the cows in secret, and bring him to drink. He was indeed filled with attention and respect for the sufferer, and with disquietude also: which made him at last question Pete:
“Is’t true that whosoever dies without confession must go to hell?”
“Most true. Why, the priest tells us so in church ever so often.”
“Then … Master shall also go to hell?” And he crossed himself in dismay.
“He’s a man like any other!”
“What? Master a man like any other?”
“You are as senseless as a cabbage-head!” said Pete, growing angry; for he saw that Vitek did not believe him. …
And thus did the days go by at Boryna’s cabin.
The village meanwhile, on account of the Voyt’s battle, was in a state of great animation, each party eagerly looking for witnesses in its favour.
It was of no great importance in itself: yet the Voyt exerted himself with might and main; and his influence in Lipka proved so considerable that more than half the inhabitants were on his side. They knew him to be no saint; but he was their Voyt all the same, and able to make things hot for opponents. So, by dint of insistence, flattery, and vodka, he got together as many witnesses as he required.
Koziol was very ill in bed, and the priest had been to him with the last sacraments. As to that illness, opinions differed: some went so far as to whisper low that it was only a feint to give the Voyt more trouble.—But who knew really what to think of it?
In the meantime Kozlova was going about all day, telling the people that she had sold her sow and farrow to purchase medicines for her goodman; and well-nigh daily she stationed herself outside the Voyt’s house, loading him with invectives, shrieking that her Bartek was about to die, and calling God and all honest people to witness in her favour and take sides with her.
Only the riffraff of the community, however, and a few tenderhearted women, were with her; Kobus also, a third-rate farmer and a most litigious and quarrelsome man. The others would not listen to her. Some paid no notice to what she said; others, in her own interest, advised her to make friends with the Voyt.
Many broils arose thence; for Kobus had an ungovernable tongue, and was very ready with his fists; while the women, on their side, used extremely violent language. Their anger and acrimony were most intense:
