The day had dawned long ago, and the sun was shining with jocund burning rays. It had been quite hot ever since breakfast-time; all the fields and orchards were being slowly plunged in a vapour-bath of whitish simmering air.
In some places, the languishing trees stirred their leaves, as birds overwhelmed by heat might flutter their wings. The lull of the day of rest had pervaded all the village; nothing moved but the swallows darting over the pond, and the carts bearing people to church from some neighbouring hamlet, with clouds of dust in their wake. … Every now and then one of them stopped in front of Boryna’s, where the disconsolate family were sitting, to greet them and sigh heavily, looking in through the open windows and door.
Ambrose made good speed, and hastened the preparations: soon the bed was out in the orchard, and the bedding spread on the hedge to air; and now he called upon Hanka to bring him juniper-berries to fumigate the mortuary chamber.
But just then she heard nothing. She had wiped the last tears from her eyes, and was looking down the road, in the hope that she might at any moment see her Antek.
But, as the hours passed, and he did not come, she wanted to send Pete to town for news of him.
“Nay,” objected Bylitsa, who had just come in from Veronka’s hut; “he will bring no news and only tire the horse.”
“But they must know something at the police bureau.”
“No doubt; but it is closed on Sundays. Besides, they will tell you naught, if their palms be not greased.”
“Alas!” she complained to her sister, “I can bear this no longer.”
“Oh, he will yet be a thorn in your side,” hissed the blacksmith, darting a glance at Yagna, who was sitting under the eaves. And, his fruitless search for the money having stirred his bile, he added spitefully: “His legs must be stiff with the irons he wore; how, then, can he make haste home?”
She replied nothing, and went to look out upon the road again.
As the Mass-bells were ringing, Ambrose made for the church after ordering Vitek to grease the dead man’s boots well, for they had got so dry that they could not be put on him.
The smith, together with Matthew, went off to the village; and now there remained no one in the cabin but the women and Vitek, busily greasing the boots, softening them over the fire, and at times casting a look in the direction of Yuzka, whose sobs were growing fainter.
There was now no movement at all upon the road, the people being in church; nor was anything to be heard in Boryna’s cabin but the voice of Agata within, saying the litany for the dead. It rose up like the chirruping of a bird, along with the volumes of juniper smoke, with which Yagustynka was perfuming the hut and the passage.
They heard the service begin. Audible in the noonday hush, the chants wafted from the church, and the sound of the organ came to them in high-pitched undulations, pleasant and remote.
Hanka could find no rest within doors, so she went to the stile, to get through her prayers there.
“Dead, dead, dead!” she thought, as the beads slipped slow through her fingers—But she prayed with her lips only; her brain, her heart, were full of manifold puzzling thoughts, and not a few misgivings.
“Thirty-two acres. Also pastures. And a bit of forest. And the outhouses, and the live stock!” She sighed and cast a look of affection on the broad acres before her.
“If we could but pay them off, and keep all the land together!—And be just what his father has been!”
Pride and ambition filled her heart; she gazed sunwards, smiled fearlessly, and went on telling her beads, her bosom swelling with agreeable hopes.
“No, I will not give up even half the land. Half the cabin is mine, too. Nor shall the others get a single one of my milch-kine!”
She went on very long in this way, saying her prayers, flinging tearful glances over those lands, clad with sunshine, as if it were a tissue of gold, where the rye, in its growing luxuriance, waved its rusty-red drooping ears; where the darker barley-patches stood shining in the light, glossy and shimmering; where the bright green oats, thickly sprinkled with yellow-flowering weeds, stirred and quivered in the parching heat; where over the blossoming clover that lay spread out on the hill-slope, like a bloodred kerchief, a great bird was hovering, balanced on its outstretched wings, and where the broad beans stood, with their thousands of snowy flowers, keeping watch and ward over the young potato-plants, and a few plots of flax in the hollows gleamed blue with delicate flowers—childlike eyes that seemed blinking in the glare.
All was so wondrously beautiful! The sun grew hotter and hotter meanwhile; and the warm breeze, laden with the scents of the blossoms that glowed in countless numbers, breathed from the fields with delicious life-giving might, dilating the souls of men.
“O native soil, O holy soil, most holy!” she said, bending down to kiss it.
She heard the church-bells tinkling, twittering in the air.
“O my dear Jesus! all’s for Thee—yea, all things in the world!” she murmured fervently, and again betook herself to prayer.
But close to her she heard a rustling noise, and looked around her cautiously. Beneath the cherry-trees, leaning against the trellised fence, Yagna stood, absorbed in unpleasant thought.
“What, never one moment of peace!” Hanka complained; for, at the sight of her, sharp memories arose—sharp as stinging nettles.
“Yes, there’s the donation made to her. ’Tis a fact! Aye, six whole acres! Oh, that thief!” She turned her back
