He felt the resolve to be unutterably painful to keep; but he took it nevertheless.
And a bitter but deep reflection occurred to him: “Let a man but once go wrong, he may come to cling so to iniquity that even death itself will not part them!”
It was dawn now, and the sky seemed covered with a mantle of grey cloth, but Antek was yet waking: and as soon as the daylight had come, Hanka appeared at his side. He looked at her with eyes full of sadness, but wonderfully gentle; and when she told him what the smith had called to let her know late the evening before, he passed his hand kindly over her unkempt hair.
“If the carting pays, I’ll buy you something at the fair.”
Such gracious behaviour on his part made her radiant with joy, and she pressed him hard to get her a glazed sideboard, “such as the organist possessed.”
“And soon ye’ll be thinking of a sofa like those at the Manor!” he said, laughing; but, promising her all she wanted, he rose early, to put his neck under the yoke again, and take up the work which waited for him at all times.
He had a further talk with the blacksmith, and directly after breakfast sent Pete to cart dung afield, while he himself went to the wood with a couple of horses.
In the clearing, the work was going on with great alacrity. Many men were busy shaping the wood cut down in wintertime; the ceaseless strokes of the axes and rasping of the saws put one in mind of woodpeckers, tapping everlastingly. In the long grass of the glades, the horses of Lipka were grazing, and the smoke of their fires curled upward.
He recalled the scene which had taken place there, and, seeing the men of Lipka now working together in amity with the “nobles” of Rzepki and the others, he nodded his head.
“Misery has taught them its lesson: a needful one, was it not?” he said to Philip, Yagustynka’s son, who was squaring a pine-log.
“But who was at fault save the Squire and the farmers?” the man growled sullenly, continuing to lop off the boughs.
“Rather, much rather, foolish spite and bad blood!” said Antek.
He stopped at the place where he had killed the forester, and swore softly to himself; for he felt the passion of yore stirring within him anew.
“The wretch! it is he that has brought me to this!—If I could, I would serve him worse still!”—He spat angrily, and set to work.
All day long he went on carting timber to the sawmill, working as if for dear life: yet he could neither drive from his mind the remembrance of Yagna nor of his impending trial.
A few days after, he heard from Matthew that the Squire was willing not only to accept instalments, but to let them have other wood in addition to the big timber; and so Nastka’s wedding had been put off until such time as Simon should be settled on his own land.
But other folk’s affairs interested him little now; and the blacksmith, who visited him almost every day, was constantly terrifying him, speaking about his unhappy position, and promising him pecuniary help to escape, should he be in sore straits.
Antek was at such moments quite ready to throw everything up and flee; but again, looking round him at the countryside, and reflecting that flight would mean leaving all that forever, he was panic-stricken, and would have preferred even the worst of prisons.
Yet the thought of a prison, too, filled him with despair.
All these inward struggles weighed him down, made him grow haggard and bitter, and harsh and fierce with those at home. What had come over him? Hanka did her very utmost, but to no purpose, to find this out. She had instantly suspected him of renewing relations with Yagna. But her own close scrutiny, and that of Yagustynka (whose fidelity was well paid) and others besides, assured her that the two were quite apart now, and never met: so she was at ease on that score. And yet, no matter how faithful a servant she proved herself, giving him the best food with the most exact punctuality, making the cottage a pattern of neatness and cleanliness, and the farm stock the very perfection of success—all would not do. He was always sullen, morose, ready to upbraid her for the slightest cause, and more than miserly of kind words. And it was worse still when he went about speechless, dreary, sad as an autumn night—not angry, not ill-tempered—only sighing deeply; often spending his whole evening with his acquaintances in the tavern.
She durst not question him openly; and Roch vowed that he was aware of nothing wrong. It might well be the truth. The old man was now seen at their cottage only at night. The whole day he was going about with his books, teaching the peasants to pray to the Sacred Heart of Jesus—a devotion which the Russian Government had severely forbidden in church.
One evening, all being together at supper, the dogs set to barking furiously along the millpond. Roch laid his spoon down and listened attentively.
“Some stranger.—I’ll go and see who it is.”
He returned in a minute, very pale, and saying:
“Sabres are flashing along the road.—If I should be asked after, I am in the village.”
And he slipped away amongst the orchard-trees.
Antek, white as a corpse, started to his feet. Dogs barked outside the fence; and men, heavily tramping, were heard in the porch.
“Have they come to fetch me?” he faltered, terror-struck.
They were all petrified: the gendarmes appeared on the threshold.
Motionless, Antek glanced at the open doors and windows. Luckily, Hanka had presence of mind enough to offer them settles and beg them to be seated.
They answered with civility enough, and at once threw out hints about supper, so that she had to prepare some scrambled eggs for them.
“Where are ye going so late?” Antek at length made
