“That wallet, throw it away! And quickly, lest any behold it!”
“Look ye, I will do just as I choose. Wherefore should I be ashamed? ‘The wallet’s his mother, who has Hunger for brother.’ ” At those words he jerked himself free from her, darted away among the horses and carts, and disappeared.
It was out of the question to think of following him in such a crowd as there was all round the church.
There the people, though drenched with perspiration, half choked with dust, half roasted by the heat, were all the same enjoying themselves to their hearts’ content, in this seething cauldron!
The barrel-organ played lustily, the dziads cried aloud, the little ones whistled in the earthenware birds they had bought; horses were biting each other and squealing, being more than usually tormented with flies that day; and men talked with their friends, or went in company to look at the booths, besieged especially by girls, who were swarming there like bees about a hive.
The articles sold were more or less those on sale at the annual fairs: pictures of saints, victuals and homely dainties, clothing, ribbons, beads, etc.; and at every booth there was a great concourse of people, stopping there on their way from church.
Some went afterwards to the tavern, some straight home. Others, overcome with sleep and weariness, just laid themselves down under the wagons or about the orchards and farmyards to refresh themselves and to rest.
In so intense a heat that they could scarcely breathe, few cared much to chat, or even to move: many felt stupefied, almost swooning. And as just then the villagers sat down to their meal, the place grew quieter at last.
At the priest’s house, they had made a grand dinner for the clergymen and the Squires, whose heads were to be seen through the open windows, out of which floated the noise of talk and the clinking of glasses, together with such delightful aromas as made the mouths of them that passed by to water.
Ambrose, arrayed in his very best, and wearing all his military decorations, was continually moving about the passages, and heard frequently crying out in the porch: “You riffraff away, or I thrash you within an inch of your lives!”
But his threats served him in no way; the urchins were like sparrows, perched all over the fences; and the boldest even crept under the windows. He could only scold, and threaten them with his Reverence’s stick.
Hanka, in search of her father, came to him just then, and asked whether he had not seen him.
“Bylitsa?—Why, ’tis so tremendously hot, he must be asleep somewhere in the shadow.—Ah! ye little wretches!” he cried, and went stumping after the urchins.
Greatly upset, Hanka returned home, and told the occurrence to her sister, who had come to dine with her.
But Veronka only gave a shrug.
“His having joined the dziads will not cost him a kingdom, and it will make things easier for us. Better men than he have ended likewise!”
“But, good God! what a disgrace to us, to let our own father go a-begging!—And what will Antek say?—And the others, our neighbours, will they not cry out that we have turned him out to beg?”
“Let them yelp as they please! Anyone can wag his tongue; but who will offer help? No one.”
“And I—I will not allow my father to beg.”
“So high and mighty? Then take him and feed him yourself.”
“So will I!—You, you grudge him a few spoonfuls of food.—Oh, I see now! … ’tis you that have driven him to this!”
“What? what? is there too much of aught in my home? Am I to take the food out of my children’s mouths, and give it to him?”
“Yet remember: he has a legal claim to be fed by you for the land he made over.”
“To give what I have not, I will not rend my bowels.”
“Rend them, but give: Father comes first! He has more than once complained to me that you starve him, and care less for him than for your swine.”
“Most true. I starve my father, and live myself like a rich lady! So stout am I that my petticoat slips off my hips, and I have hardly strength to crawl.”
“Do not talk so: folk might think ye spoke the truth.”
“But I do! Were it not for Yankel, we should not even get the potatoes and salt we eat.—Ah, ’tis a true saying: ‘Goodman Bellyful thinks no one is hungry.’ ”
She was going on in this way, and growing more and more querulous, when the blind man, led by his dog, appeared on the premises.
“Sit ye down here by the hut,” Hanka said, and hurried away to get him his dinner.
Dinner had been already served under the trees, and the smell of the dishes came to his nostrils.
“Groats and fat bacon: very good indeed. May it profit you!” the beggar muttered, sniffing the scent of it, and smacking his lips.
His dog sat close to the house-wall, panting with wide-open jaws, and tongue lolling out; for the heat was so great as to melt them all to nothing. In the hot sleepy stillness, only the scraping of the spoons was heard, with (at times) a swallow twittering under the eaves.
“Oh, how cooling would a little dish of sour milk be!” sighed the dziad.
Yuzka answered at once: “Be easy, I shall fetch you some.”
“Well, has your whining brought you in much today?” Pete asked, tapping the dish lazily with his spoon.
“Lord have mercy on all sinners, and remember not their ill-treatment of the dziads!—Brought me in much, quotha!—Whoso sees a dziad must needs stare into the sky, or turn down another road. Or, drawing forth some miserable small coin, he will wish he had change for a five-kopek piece. We shall die of starvation!”
“But,” Veronka objected, “this year the hard times before harvest press sorely on all of us.”
“They do; but for all that, no man goes short of vodka.”
Yuzka here put a porringer in his hands,
