So many presents did she receive that she had enough for a long, long time. And one evening, at dusk, Yasyek Topsy-turvy brought her his dog Kruchek, which he tied up close to her hut, and then took to his heels, as if in fear of some harm that might come.
They laughed heartily, as they told Nastka about this; but she curled a disdainful lip.
“At the noonday rest, Nastka, he had been gathering berries for you; and his mother took them away from him!”
VII
Yagustynka went to the Borynas’. She had gathered some wild strawberries, and brought them for Yuzka. Hanka was then milking the cows outside the hut: so she sat down under the eaves and told her of all the presents Nastka had got.
“But,” she concluded, “they all do this to spite Dominikova.”
“And,” Hanka corrected, “to help Nastka also.—By the by, I too ought to take her something or other.”
“If ye have aught that I can take now, I’ll do it willingly,” Yagustynka told her. And then from inside the cabin was heard a faint voice of entreaty—Yuzka’s.
“O Hanka, give her my young sow! I know I am going to die, and then Nastka will say a prayer for my soul!”
The idea struck Hanka as good; she directly told Vitek to drive the little sow over to Nastka’s, for she did not feel inclined to go herself.
“Vitek,” Yuzka cried, “tell her the sow is from me. And she must come quick to see me: I cannot move now.”
The poor girl was very plaintive and querulous. She had been in bed for a week, sick of a fever, all her body covered with crusts and scales. At first they had let her lie under the orchard trees, for she had begged them very hard. But she had grown so much worse that Yagustynka had forbidden this.
“You must lie in the dark,” she said; “the sunlight drives all the ill humours inside.”
So, moaning and groaning and complaining feebly that no children nor any friends of hers were allowed to come in, she lay alone in the darkened room. And Yagustynka, now constituted her guardian, drove away any that tried to come in, even taking a stick to them!
Having spoken thus with Hanka, she gave the strawberries to the sick child, and prepared an ointment for her, made up of pure buckwheat meal, mixed with much fresh unsalted butter, and many egg-yolks. With that, she smeared Yuzka’s face and neck, laying it on very thick, and covering all with wet cloths. The child submitted passively to the treatment, only asking with some apprehension:
“Will not the sores leave pockmarks on my face?”
“Only do not scratch at them, and they will leave none.—As it was for Nastka.”
“But they sting me so, O Lord! … Then pray bind my hands fast, else I shall not be able to bear the pain!” And as she begged very earnestly, and could scarce refrain from tearing at her cheeks, the old woman, muttering an incantation over her, fumigated her with the smoke of dried houseleek, bound her arms to her sides, and went off to work.
Yuzka lay still, listening to the hum of the flies—and another strange buzzing, too, which ever and anon sounded within her head. She also, as in a dream, now and then heard someone of the household coming in to look at her and going away on tiptoe. And then she fancied there were boughs, laden with rosy apples, that hung very low above her head, but she was powerless to reach up and snatch them; and then a flock of sheep came crowding around her, bleating pitifully … but Vitek came into the room, and she knew him at once.
“Have you taken to Nastka my little sow?—What did she say?”
“Why, she rejoiced over it so, she came near kissing its tail!”
“Ye naughty fellow! Making fun even of Nastka!”
“But I say true!—And she bade me tell you she will be here tomorrow.”
All at once, Yuzka began to toss to and fro, crying out in dismay:
“Drive them off!—They’ll trample me down!—Baa! Baa! Baa!”
Then of a sudden she collapsed, lying still as in sleep. Vitek went out, but returned at frequent intervals. Once she asked him anxiously:
“Is it noon yet?”
“Nearer midnight: everybody is asleep.”
“True: ’tis dark.”
“Take those sparrows away: they are chirping like unfledged birds.”
He was just telling her something about their nests, when she screamed and sat up.—“Where’s Grey One? Vitek, let it not stray, or Father will thrash you!”
Then she told him to come near her, and talked to him in a whisper: “Hanka forbade me to go to Nastka’s wedding; yet will I go in despite of her … dressed in a dark-blue corset … and the skirt I wore for the Indulgence. … Vitek! pluck me some apples; but only let Hanka not catch you.” Then she was all at once still, as though plunged in swift sleep.
Vitek was for hours at her side, brushing flies away and giving her water. Hanka had told him to stay at home, and watch over her, while little Matthias, Klemba’s son, tended Boryna’s cattle along with his father’s.
The want of the free forest air made itself felt sorely to the boy; but, deeply affected as he was by Yuzka’s state, he would (as they say) have pulled the sky down for her, and have done anything to interest her and make her laugh.
One day, he brought her a whole covey of little partridges.
“Yuzka, stroke them! stroke them, and they will cry pew-pew to you!”
“How can I?” she moaned, raising her head.
He undid her, and she took up the fluttering unfledged birds in those poor feeble nerveless hands of hers, and pressed them to her face and eyes.
“Ah, how their souls throb within them! How frightened they are, poor things!”
“What? I myself caught them, and shall I let them go?” he protested, unwilling
