Another time, he brought her a leveret, that he placed on the down coverlet over her, holding it up by the ears.
“Dear little leveret, sweet little leveret, taken away from your mother!” she whispered, holding it close to her bosom, like an infant in arms, and stroking and fondling it tenderly. But the animal screamed as if tortured, and, escaping from her hands, jumped out into the passage amongst a lot of fowls that took tumultuously to flight, rushed out of the porch just in front of Lapa, that was dozing inside, and away into the orchard. The dog was hot in pursuit instantly; Vitek followed, shouting; and the noise and uproar were so great that Hanka came out of the farmyard: while Yuzka laughed almost to split her sides.
“And did the dog get it?” she asked, with anxiety.
“A likely thing!” he exclaimed. “No; he just saw its scut and no more, when it vanished into the depths of the corn, as a stone disappears in the water.—A splendid runner it is.—Do not be sad, Yuzka; I will get you another.”
Whatever he could find, he brought to her: now a lot of gold-besprinkled quails, now a hedgehog, now a tame squirrel that leapt about the room the most funnily in the world; or a brood of young swallows, twittering so very sorrowfully that the parent birds flew after them into the room, and Yuzka ordered him to restore them to the nest; and many another curious thing; besides apples and pears, as many as they both could manage to eat without their elders’ knowing.—But everything at last wearied her, and she turned away tired and caring no more for anything.
“All this is naught to me! bring me something new!” she would murmur, turning even from the stork, as it strutted about the room, poking its beak into every pot and pan, or placed itself in ambush for a sudden thrust at Lapa in the doorway.—Once only, when he brought her a rainbow-hued bee-eater, caught alive, did she enjoy the sight a little.
“What a magnificent bird! It looks as if painted!”
“Only take care lest it peck your nose: ’tis an ill bird to tackle.”
“But it does not even try to get away.—Is it tame?”
“No, but I have bound its wings and legs.”
The bird amused them for some time; but it pined away, sat motionless, and, refusing to eat, died shortly, to the great sorrow of all in the household.
So the days went by.
Outside, it was slowly getting hotter and hotter still: men could hardly do anything in the fields by day; nor was the night anything but a stifling time spent in a vast oven: even out of doors and in the orchards, it was so. The drought was swiftly becoming a disaster. The cattle came back to their sheds, lowing and hungry from the pasture-lands. Potatoes were withering to the size of hazelnuts; there were fields wherein the stunted oats rose but a few inches above the ground; the blades of barley were sere; and the rye, untimely dried up, was white with grainless ears. In deep trouble, therefore, they would look, each sunset, in desolate hope, for some indication of a coming change in the weather. But not a cloud hung in the sky. Above them there was only a glassy whitish glare; and the sun would go down unveiled by the faintest shadow of vapour.
Many a one new wept fervently at the altar of our Lord’s Transfiguration, before the holy images; but unavailingly. The fields grew ever more parched, more scorched; the fruits fell unripe from the trees; and so little water now went down the stream that both flour-mill and sawmill stood closed, silent and dreary: while the people, reduced to desperation, united, each man paying his quota for a grand votive Mass, with exposition of the Holy Sacrament!
So heartily and so fervently did they put up their prayers that not even a heart of stone could have remained untouched.
And indeed our Lord did have mercy on them. True, the next day was so sultry, so perspiring, so fiercely glowing that birds fell fainting to the earth, oxen lowed plaintively over the pasture-lands, horses would not come out from their stables, and men, wearied and worn, crawled about the dried-up orchards, unwilling to quit the shade. But it came to pass that—at the very point of noon, when everything seemed about to breathe its last in that white-hot fiery furnace—there came a sudden mist, troubling the brightness of the sun and obscuring it, as if a handful of ashes had been flung over its disk; and shortly there was heard a sound as of the wings of many birds high in air, and livid masses of clouds assembled from every quarter, more louring and more full of grim menace every instant.
Now fear breathed in every bosom; and all were still and hushed, though thrilled with apprehension.
Many thunders muttered with faraway voices; and then arose a gale, and the dust got up in multitudinous whorls, close and compact; the sun shed a sickly glare, of a sandy yellow hue. And then all rapidly grew dark, and the heavens were filled with swarms of lightnings—as if someone were cracking fiery whiplashes in the sky. And with the falling of the first thunderbolt the people came rushing out of their houses.
Immediately a great tumult sprang up. The sun was now quite invisible, in the wild confusion of an indescribable whirlwind, in which, amid entangled masses of pitchy darkness, there poured forth shaft after shaft of dazzling splendour; thunder, rolling and roaring, came with the flashes of lightning; then, the rattling downpour, and the howling of the blasts in the trees.
Thunderbolt followed thunderbolt with blinding brilliancy; the rain fell in such sheets that all was hid from sight; flaws of hail went passing here and there.
This lasted for about an hour. The corn was lodged, the roads had turned to frothy turbid streams by now. Then
