“But,” Agata put in, interrupting the prayers she was saying, “he had children that were good, and did him no wrong.”
Yagustynka turned snappishly upon her. “Say your prayers, you! ye were best. What? will she drone dirges for the dead man, and listen all the time to the talk?”
“Well, but if his children were bad, would they mourn for him so? Only hark to them!”
“Had he but left you so much, ye would move heaven and earth with your lamentations!”
Here Ambrose interfered. “Be quiet,” he said; “here comes Yagna.”
She rushed in, but stood transfixed in the middle of the room, unable to speak.
They were then attiring the body in a clean shirt.
“What! … gone?” she said at last, with eyes fixed on him. Fear was gripping at her throat and her heart; her blood ran cold and she could scarcely breathe.
“Did they not tell you?” Ambrose inquired.
“I was asleep at Mother’s: Vitek came to call me but now.—Is he dead truly and indeed?” she asked suddenly, approaching him.
“Surely ’tis for a coffin, not for a wedding, that I am attiring him.”
She could not make it out, and staggered up against the wall; she fancied herself in a deep sleep, the prey of some nightmare.
Several times she quitted the room, but always returned: to keep her eyes away from the body was impossible. Now and again she would start up to go out, and yet stayed on; at times she went out as far as the stile, and looked far across the fields with unseeing gaze; or she would seat herself outside, but close to the room and to Yuzka, who was weeping, tearing her hair, and forever crying:
“Oh my father, my lost father! lost!”
There was great wailing and sobbing, not only in, but also around, the cabin. Of the mourners, Yagna alone, though quaking in every limb, and stirred to the inmost depths of her being, could not shed one tear, could not utter one cry. She only walked to and fro with eyes gloomily bright, with an expression of stern awe.
It was a good thing that Hanka presently recovered herself and, though tearful yet, was able to see to everything, and felt quite calm on the arrival of the blacksmith and his wife.
Magda wept; the smith asked for particulars, which Hanka gave him.
“ ’Tis well that the Lord Jesus has sent him so easy a death!”
“Poor man! Running out afield to flee Dame Crossbones’ embrace!”
“Yestereve I went to look at him; he was as quiet as usual.”
“And did he not speak? Not a word?” the smith asked, wiping tearless eyes.
“Not a word. So I pulled the down covering over him, gave him to drink, and came away.”
“What? and so he got up alone! Peradventure, then, he might not have died, had any been there to watch over him,” said Magda, between her sobs.
“Yagna was sleeping at her mother’s. She always does so, now the old dame is so very ill.”
“It was to be!—And it has been!” said the blacksmith. “These three months and over he has been a-dying. Whoso cannot be healed, better let him die quickly. Let us thank the Lord God that he suffers no longer.”
“Aye, and well ye know how much the physicians and medicines cost us in the first days … and all to no purpose.”
“Ah!” Magda lamented; “how good a farmer he was! how able a man!”
“What grieves me is that Antek should not find him alive, when he comes back.”
“He is no child, nor likely to weep on that account.—Rather bethink yourself of the funeral.”
“True, true.—Oh, what a pity that Roch is away just now!”
“We can do without him. Be not troubled: I will see to all,” the smith replied.
He showed a sorrowful face, but was evidently masking some hidden thought as he set to help Ambrose to fold up the dead man’s clothes. For a long time he ferreted in the storeroom amongst hanks of spun wool and odds and ends; then he went up the ladder—for the boots which hung there, he said. The fellow panted as loud as a pair of bellows, pattered prayers for the dead man louder than Agata, and was continually recalling the good actions of the deceased. But his eyes were meanwhile wandering about the room, and his hands gliding about under the pillows, or groping in the straw of the mattress.
At length Yagustynka said tartly: “Are ye looking for aught in particular?”
“One cannot find, unless one seeks!” he answered. And then he began to search quite openly; nor did the arrival of Michael from the organist’s, in hot haste for Ambrose, hinder him in the least.
“Come at once, Ambrose: four babies wait in church to be christened.”
“Let them wait; I must first of all get him neat and tidy.”
“Nay, ye had better go, Ambrose,” said the smith, who wanted to get rid of him.
“What I have offered to do, I will do. I shall not soon lay out such another as he. Take my place in church, Michael,” he added, turning to the lad, “and let the godfathers and godmothers go round the altar with lighted tapers: they will drop you kopeks in plenty.—What!” disparagingly; “ye are to be an organist, yet cannot serve at a simple christening?”
Hanka now brought in Matthew, to measure Boryna for his coffin.
“Do not grudge him room in this last dwelling of his,” said Ambrose, in a sad tone; “let the poor man have some comfort, at least after death!”
“Lord, Lord!” Yagustynka whispered; “when he lived, he had not enough with all his many acres; and now four boards will suffice him amply!”
Agata, interrupting her prayers, here faltered tearfully:
“He was a landowner, and shall be buried as such; but some poor creatures know not under which hedge they are to die. … May light perpetual shine upon you! May—” And here she broke down again.
Matthew said nothing, but nodded, and after taking the measure, said a prayer and went
