“Then did Matthias drop down on his knees; for he heard the Angels singing, and the little bells ringing, as during Mass at the Elevation; and answered with tears:
“ ‘I shall speak the truth, even as in confession. Lo, I could not stay upon earth any more. Men are there like wolves to one another, and quarrels are rife, and dissensions, and sins against our Lord.
“ ‘They are not men, Saint Peter, not human creatures, but mad dogs, as it were. … Behold, they are so evil that I cannot say all the evil they do. …
“ ‘Gone is obedience, gone is honesty, gone is all mercy as well! The brother rises up against his brother, and the child against his father, and the wife against her husband, and the serving-man against his master. They respect nothing any more—neither old age, nor dignity of station, nor even the very priesthood itself.
“ ‘The Evil One now reigns in every heart; under his rule lasciviousness and drunkenness and spite now flourish daily more and more.
“ ‘Knaves, ridden by knaves whom knaves drive: such are they all!
“ ‘Trickery is everywhere, and fraud, and cruel oppression, and such thieving! Set but down what ye hold in your hand, they will snap it up at once!
“ ‘They will graze their beasts, or trample down the grass, on your very best meadow.
“ ‘If you possess but a strip of land, they will take it and plough it for their own!
“ ‘Let but a fowl run forth from your garden: they’ll instantly seize it!
“ ‘All they do is to swill vodka, commit uncleanness, and neglect God’s service. They are heathens, Christ-murderers, and the Jews their accomplices are scores of times more honest and God-fearing than they.’
“Here Saint Peter interrupted him: ‘Oh, is it thus in your parish of Lipka?’
“ ‘ ’Tis no better elsewhere perchance, but nowhere is it worse.’
“Then Saint Peter smote his hands together, and his eyes flashed. And, stretching down his fist towards the earth, he said:
“ ‘Men of Lipka, are ye then such? Such loathsome wretches, heathens worse even than Germans? Ye possess goodly fields, a fertile soil, pastures and meadow-lands, and also portions of the forest: and ’tis thus that ye demean yourselves? O knaves that ye are, waxed fat with too much bread!—Most surely will I tell our Lord of your misdeeds, and He will henceforth keep a tighter hand upon you!’
“Matthias, good man as he was, tried hard to plead for his people; but Saint Peter grew wroth, and cried out, stamping his foot:
“ ‘Say not one word in their favour: they are villains, all of them! This one thing do I tell thee: let those sons of Judas repent and do penance ere three weeks are past … or if not, I will afflict them bitterly, with hunger, and fire, and sickness; and the scoundrels shall remember me well!’ ”
The priest went on preaching in the same unsparing fashion, and dealing out menaces of God’s anger against them, with such effect that the whole congregation burst into sobs of contrition, and beat their breasts in token of repentance.
Then, after a breathing-space, he again spoke of the deceased, and pointed out how he had fallen for their sakes. And he wound up with an appeal to them all to live in concord and avoid sin, since no one knew whose turn it would be next to stand before God’s awful judgment-seat.
Even the Squire was seen to brush away a tear.
The priest went off with him, when the funeral came to a close. And as the coffin descended with a thud into the grave, and the sand began to stream down upon it with a hollow rumbling, there arose such a tempest of cries, such a din of tumultuous lamentations, as might well have softened the hardest heart.
Yuzka wept clamorously, and Magda, and Hanka, and all the relations, near or distant, and even many that were not related at all. But not less loud than the loudest rang the shrieks of Yagna, who felt something clutch and tear at her heart, and made her as one beside herself.
“Yes, yes! She is bellowing now: yet what pranks she used to play upon her husband!” someone muttered aside; and Ploshkova, wiping her eyes, remarked:
“She would fain find grace in their eyes, and not be expelled from the cabin.”
“Does she think them such fools that they can be cozened so?” was the outspoken comment of the organist’s wife.
Yagna was completely unmindful of them all. Stretched out on a mound of sand, she lay crying wildly, with a feeling as if it were she herself upon whom those heavy reverberating torrents of earth were now pouring down, for whom the bells were tolling so mournfully, and over whom the people were so sorrowfully lamenting.
They now began to disperse: some, as they went, stopping to kneel and pray for some dear departed, others wandering about the tombs in dreary meditation, and others again lingering here and there, as they saw Hanka and the smith giving invitations to the customary funeral feast.
The earth was now beaten down over the grave; a black cross had been stuck in; and all went to the cabin with the mourners in several groups, talking low, condoling with them, and at times shedding tears.
The cabin was ready for them, with tables and settles ranged along the walls; and the company, when seated, was offered bread and vodka.
They drank at first with quiet decorum, and broke a little bread. The organist read suitable prayers, and a litany was sung for the deceased, with pauses when the blacksmith went round with drinks, and Yagustynka with more bread.
The women gathered in the other apartment with Hanka, and took tea and sweet cakes; and, the organist’s wife leading off, they sang strains so plaintive and piercing that hens about the orchard began to cackle. Thus did the company eat, drink, and weep to the honoured memory of him who had died,
