“And whither shall all these go?” the old men murmured sadly, looking on while their children played about the roads in the evening—so numerous that the huts could scarce contain them. “But how is it possible to purchase any land, since we get barely enough to live on out of ours?”
They cudgelled their brains not a little; they even went to the priest for advice. But he could give them none. “Out of an empty pot, nothing is ever got!”
“Ah! ‘money makes the mare go’; but, ‘wherever the poor man goes, the wind against him blows!’ ”
Useless complaints, useless lamentations!
To make matters worse, the weather grew excessively hot: July weather in May. The sun rose in the very East, a vast fire in the azure: on every height, in all sandy soil, the vegetables drooped and faded. The grass was sear and burnt upon the fallows; and the potato-plants, which had at first sprouted well, hardly covered the ground with their poor puny shoots. The autumn-sown lands were alone to suffer little; being already in the ear, they grew splendidly and very high: the low cottages they surrounded seemed to have shrunk yet lower, crouching earthwards with only their roofs well above the forest of waving corn.
The nights being so hot and sultry that it was painful to lie in the huts, people slept in the orchards.
As a consequence of the great heats, of those troubles which beset them in troops, and also of the hard times preceding the harvest (harder than usual that year), it came to pass that the people of Lipka quarrelled and fought among themselves more than ever. Everyone seemed to enjoy thwarting his neighbour, and life there became a real torment. From the peep of day, the village rang with bickerings and angry words, some new contest taking place every day. Now it was Kobus and his wife, who had such a set-to that the priest had to go and rebuke and reconcile them; now Balcerek’s wife, who came to blows with Gulbas over a pig that had strayed into her carrot-patch; now Ploshkova, who had a row with the Soltys, on account of their goslings’ getting mixed: besides countless wrangles about the children, or unneighbourly behaviour, or anything that could serve for a squabble and outcries and noisy invectives. There seemed to be a curse on the village, bringing no end of altercations, breaches of the peace, and lawsuits.
Ambrose even made fun of this waspish disposition before strangers.
“This year times are not so very hard for me before harvest, by the goodness of Providence! No one dies, no one is born, no one is married; but they daily offer me vodka, and flatter me, and beg me to bear witness for them! Let them but wrangle so a few years more, and I shall have drunk myself to death!”
Lipka was in a bad way indeed; but things went worst of all at Dominikova’s.
Simon had returned with the others, Andrew’s leg was well now; they were not in sore straits as others were, and things ought to have gone on as of old. Far from it! Her sons would no longer obey her. They were grown rebellious, always at loggerheads with her, objected to being beaten, and refused to do woman’s work!
“Ye must hire a maidservant,” they said tartly, “or do the work yourself.”
Now Dominikova had ruled them with a rod of iron, and tyrannized over them for many a year; so she was very much shocked to see her own children rise up against her now.
“Grant me patience!” she would scream on such occasions, flying in a rage, and taking up her stick; but they made stout resistance, and were as stubborn as she. Every day there were fearful quarrels, hunts all over the premises, and so on, till the neighbours would rush in to smooth matters over.
The priest himself called her sons to him, and exhorted them to live in concord and obedience. They heard him out with patient respect, kissed his hand and humbly embraced his knees as in duty bound; but they behaved as before.
“We are no children; we know what to do, and Mother must yield. Why, the whole village was making laughingstocks of us!”
Choler and exasperation had made the old dame yellow as a quince. Do what she might, she could not get the better of them; and now, instead of attending church services or gossiping as she had been accustomed, she had to work at home! She was always calling on Yagna to assist her; but from her too she got shame and sorrow in plenty.
The Voyt would look in frequently, to take her advice, he said: in reality, to get Yagna out with him, and play pranks with her in the garden.
Nothing can be hidden in a village: all knew perfectly well what was going on. And their guilty love becoming more and more openly scandalous, certain good people spoke several times to the old woman on the subject.
What was she to do? Yagna, notwithstanding prayers and supplications, flaunted her wantonness as though to spite her mother. The most grievous sin, the most shameful obloquy, was preferable in her eyes to staying by that husband whom she loathed.
Hanka too did nothing to oppose this state of things, and said so openly.
“So long as there is no one to prevent the Voyt from wasting the community’s money, she may do as she pleases. He grudges her naught, fetches her all he can from town, and would, if he could, put her in a frame of gold. Let them have their sport … and see the end of it!—I have naught in common with them!”
And truly, she had troubles enough of her own. She had given the lawyer whatever he asked, but could as yet not tell when Antek was to be tried, nor what destiny awaited him. And meanwhile he was pining away in prison, hoping God would have mercy on him.—In the cabin, besides, things
