The “ancient” lit a cigarette, and held it between his teeth as he went on talking, lamenting over his lot: no rest either day or night with that everlasting service!
“Indeed? That means it is no easy thing nowadays to squeeze money out of the peasants!”
The “ancient” flung out a curse at him, with a foul reflection on his mother. Antek, who had no mind to bandy insults with them, grasped his stick with a firm clutch, and rejoined, now openly attacking him:
“What I say is the simple truth: your service in the villages only gets you barked at; at most, some poor fellow’s last zloty may now and then find its way to your pockets!”
The “ancient,” though he turned green with spite, and clenched his hand on his sword-hilt, still bore this in silence. It was only when they were just passing the last cabin in the village that he unexpectedly sprang at Antek, crying out to his comrade:
“Seize him!”
The surprise failed, however. Before they could touch him, Antek had sent them both reeling back with a couple of blows. Leaping to one side, he stood, with his back against the cabin, brandishing his stick, showing teeth that gleamed like a wolf’s, and uttering bits of sentences, hoarse and incoherent:
“Go your ways. … Ye’ll never get hold of me! … Even four of you would be too few! … Dogs! I’ll break all your teeth! … What would ye? … I have done no one any harm. … Will ye have a fight?—Very well; but first order a cart to carry your bodies away. … Come on, then.—Touch me.—Let me see you try!” he growled; and his stick sang loud in the air. He was in a slaying mood.
Seeing him thus, they both stood transfixed: the man was of such great stature, expanded to the utmost by the towering passion he was in; and his stick hissed and hummed and whirled in his hand with so ominous a sound!—The “ancient” felt that an attack upon him was out of the question, and attempted to turn the whole affair off as a joke.
“Ha! ha! excellent! … Trapped! Trapped! A splendid joke we have played off on you!” He burst out laughing, holding both his sides, while they withdrew several steps (overcome, as it were, with the fun of the thing); but, continuing to retire, and now out of danger, he suddenly changed his tone and, shaking his fist, snarled furiously:
“Ye have not seen the last of us, my master: we shall talk with each other once more!”
He snarled back in reply: “May the plague carry you both off first! Why, you are afraid lest I should attack you; therefore did ye try to turn it into a jest!—And I too shall talk with you … but man to man, and alone!” he growled, as he watched them out of sight.
“Those fellows—to set upon me!” he thought. “The fools! They were the hounds, I was the hare!”—He mused.—“Because of what I said at the assembly! Though indeed it could not have been much to his taste.”
He was now near the Manor garden, that lay at some distance beyond the village, and sat down there to rest awhile and compose himself. The Manor was seen through the wooden fence, white upon the background of a larch grove, its open windows staring darkly, like so many grottoes. On the pillared veranda, there were several people sitting: probably taking refreshment, for servants hovered about them, and there was a clinking of crockery. At times the sound of merry laughter was heard.
“They are well off, those folk! Eating, drinking, and caring for nothing at all!” he thought, making a meal of the bread and cheese that Hanka had put in his pocket.
As he ate, his eyes roved over the huge lime-trees which bordered the road, and were now full of blossoms and humming bees, and the soft steamy fragrance from them filled him with delight. A duck quacked in a neighbouring pond; there, too, frogs croaked drowsily; the thickets around him thrilled to the many voices of living things, and from the fields came the grasshoppers’ concert, alternately loud and faint: till, after a time, all these sounds were hushed and silenced, as it were, in the sunshine’s hot downpour. Silence reigned; all animated life hid away from the desolating heat—all except the swallows, that were darting and dashing and flashing about evermore.
His eyes ached with the intensity of the heat, and even in the shadow he felt parboiled. The last pools were drying up, and the blast, which blew from the all but ripe cornfields and the parched fallow lands, was like that from an open oven.
Antek, after resting well, walked swiftly towards the neighbouring woods; but, passing out of the shadow and into the light, he felt a quiver pass through him, as if he were entering a furnace of white fire. His capote was off, but his shirt, that clung close to his moist reeking sides, seemed like hot sheet-iron. He took off his boots as well, and went on with naked feet crunching the burning sand.
The stunted little birch-trees that grew here and there gave hardly any shadow yet; the drooping ears of rye bent down over the roadway, and the flowers also hung their heads in the burning glare.
Sultry silence prevailed: no man was visible; no bird, no living creature anywhere in sight. Not a leaf, not a blade of grass trembled. It was as if the Demon of Noontide had swooped down upon the country and, with husky lips, were sucking all the strength out of the swooning earth.
Antek walked on, still more slowly, thinking of the assembly: now furious with anger, now laughing with scorn, now heavy with discouragement.
“What’s to be done with such men?—The first gendarme who comes by appals them! … If they were commanded to obey a gendarme’s boot, they would!—Sheep, silly sheep, all of them!” he thought, with mixed feelings of bitterness and compassion.
“True, we
