It was now still hotter than before, and fast growing unbearably hot. Every throat was dry as dust; a whitish haze had come over the sun; athwart the bright sky long filmy streaks were floating; the overheated air made the outlines of things quiver and wave as though seen through boiling water.—A storm was at hand.
The procession had lasted a full hour; the priest was drenched with perspiration and as red as a beetroot: yet he continued to officiate with grave dignity, going from altar to altar, listening to the various Gospels sung and intoning the various hymns.
There were moments when the people ceased from chanting; and then the larks took up the song, and the continual cry, Cuckoo, Cuckoo! rang out. Meanwhile, and never-endingly, the great bells boomed.
And though the chants recommenced, and the peasants roared with stentorian throats, and the women’s thin shrill voices joined in with the pipings of the children, and the rippling music of the tiny jingling bells carried in the procession, and the loud footsteps upon the trampled earth: still the voice of that grand tolling was loud all the time—pure, high—with deep golden notes that reached to Heaven, full of joy and gladness and sonorous beauty: as if hammers, beating on the sounding disk of the sun, were striking out of it those mighty notes, making the whole countryside toss and ring again!
Then came the return to the church, and a long service within doors: organ pealing loud, voices lifted up!
At last the congregation dispersed: when on a sudden the sky grew dark, the rolling of thunder resounded afar, a dry blasting wind came in whirling gusts, the trees lashed each other, and volumes of dust filled the air.
The people from the neighbouring villages drove away at once and at the top of their speed. A drizzling rain fell, making the air still more close and sultry, while the sun went on pouring down its pitiless heat. The frogs’ croaking grew fainter and more drowsy to the ear. The gloom came nearer, and the far-off landscape was now already shrouded; the thunder growled again, and from the livid East brief pallid lightnings flashed forth.
It was from the East that the storm came, extending crescent-wise its ponderous masses of slate-blue clouds, pregnant with rain—possibly with hail. It whistled in the treetops, it tore along the corn, while the birds flew with noisy cries to the shelter of the eaves, and even the dogs sought the cabins. The cattle, too, were coming back from the fields; whirls and pillars of dust were dancing along the roads, and closer and closer still came the sound of the thunder.
Presently the sun was submerged in a mass of rusty-hued vapour, through which it shone as through a pane of semitransparent glass. The thunder growled close to the village, and such gusts came now and then as might have torn the trees up by the roots. The first thunderbolts struck somewhere far away in the woods; the whole sky quickly became of a dark livid tint; the sun vanished. Gusts flew raging by; bolts fell in quick succession; the earth shook with thunder, and the black sky shone brilliantly with flashes whose sudden glint plucked the eyes out.
The very dwellings quivered to the sounds, and all creation quailed and shrank with fear.
Luckily, however, the storm passed over on one side. The lightning struck somewhere far away, the wind went down, having done no harm, the sky brightened up again, after a plentiful rain had fallen a little before Vespers, bringing with it such a flood of water that all the corn was laid instantly, the mill-stream ran in spate, and every ditch, field-path and furrow was flowing with foaming water.
It was only at evening that all was as before, the rain having given over, and the sun shining forth behind the western clouds—a huge bright-red ball.
Then did Lipka breathe once more, its inhabitants looked out upon the world again, gratefully inhaling the cool air and the scents of the land after the rain, especially those of the young birches and the mint-plants in the gardens. The pools all along the roads burned in the sunset, the leaves and grasses sparkled, and the frothy waters seemed liquid fire, as they bubbled with joy, streaming down to the millpond.
A slight breeze rustled the laid corn; a bracing cool now breathed from the woods and fields. The children, shouting merrily, went out to paddle in the brooks and ditches; birds chirruped in the boughs, dogs scampered about; the metallic notes of the priest’s guinea-hens sounded from the hedge: in all the roads and all about the huts there was a din of talk and merry calls. Soon, too, not far from the mill, rose the sounds of the love-ditty:
“Long, long waiting, I am drenched with dew:
Loved one, loved one, take me in to you!”
And from the fields, together with the bellowing of the cattle driven homewards, there floated a song bawled by some herdsman:
“Sweetheart, your rye once reaped, you said
That me without delay you’d wed:
Rye, wheat and oats are reaped; and yet
My marriage lines I cannot get!
Oy dana, da dana!”
Now the carts of those who had stayed out the storm began to drive off; but a good many farmers from the neighbouring places remained as the guests of the Lipka folk—those, that is, who had so kindly come to help the women not long since. They were received in the homes of the wealthier farmers with plenty to eat and drink; but the poorer took their kind friends to treat them at the tavern, so as to enjoy the pleasure of company: the more, the merrier.
Some musicians came too; and, immediately after Vespers, there was heard inside the tavern the thin melody of the violin, the rumbling of the bass-viol, and the deep-toned boom of the drum.
People crowded all the more eagerly to enjoy themselves, because since
