“Then, Yagna, I’ll bring some, and we’ll drink it here together.”
“God reward your kindness, but I must look for Mother.”
“Yagna, I’ll help you to find her,” he whispered very low, and going foremost, elbowed a way for her so powerfully that she was easily able to get through the crowd. But when they stood before the booths of linen goods, the girl walked more slowly, and presently stopped, her eyes beaming with joy at the various objects before her.
“Oh, what splendid things! Lord, dear Lord!” she murmured, stopping in front of the ribbons which, hanging above her, waved in the air, like a mobile and flaming rainbow.
“Choose the one you like best, Yagna!”
“Why, that yellow one embroidered with flowers must cost a rouble, or perhaps even ten zloty!”
“Let not that trouble you, but take it.”
Yagna, however—regretfully indeed and with a great effort—let the ribbon go, and passed on to the next booth: Boryna remaining a little behind for a few instants.
Now her gaze again fell on kerchiefs, and stuffs for bodices, and jackets.
“O Lord, O Lord! what beautiful things!” she murmured low, rapt with the glamour of it all; and more than once she would plunge her quivering hands into those folds of green or red satin, till her eyes grew dim and her heart went pit-a-pat with delight.
And what headdresses those kerchiefs made! Scarlet silk, embroidered all round with green flowers; or all of a golden hue; or a deep blue, like the sky after rain! And those—the finest of them all—of changeful shimmering colours, pure as water shining in the evening sunlight, and no heavier than floating gossamer! … No, she could not help it: she must try that kerchief on her head, and see herself in the looking-glass the Jewess of the booth was holding out to her.
Yes, it suited her to perfection; it was like a glorious aureole over her light flaxen tresses, and made the deep azure of her eyes shine so intensely with the joy of it that they glowed violet amid the splendour of her face. And people turned to gaze at her, so handsome she appeared, surrounded with so bright an emanation of youth and health!
“Is not this the daughter of some Squire, disguising herself?” they whispered among themselves.
For a long time she contemplated the kerchief, and then, with a deep sigh, took it off, and set to bargaining: not meaning to buy it—this was impossible—but only for the pleasure of enjoying its beauty a little longer.
Presently, however, her ardour cooled. The Jewess had put the price at five roubles!—Even Boryna at once dissuaded her.
Again they came to a stop before the stalls of beads. How many strings there were! And how they looked! As if the whole stall were oversprinkled with precious gems: so brilliant, so resplendent! Hard, indeed, it was to take one’s eyes away from them—from those amber globules of pellucid gold, looking for all the world as if made of sweet-scented resin; and the coral drops, like threaded beads of blood; and the white pearls, as big as hazelnuts; and those other drops of silver and of gold!
Yagna tried on more than one, and made her choice of the most beautiful. At last she caught sight of one very lovely string of coral beads, passed it four times round her neck, and, turning to the old man, said:
“Does it suit me? Tell me true.”
“Splendidly, Yagna!—But coral beads are no strange thing to me. In a chest at my home there lies a necklace of eight rows. ’Twas my wife’s. Every bead is as big as the biggest pea.” This he said to her with studied indifference.
“And what’s that to me, if it is not mine?” She flung the beads back and hastened away, moody and repining.
“Yagna, let’s sit down awhile.”
“I must go to mother.”
“No fear of her leaving you behind.”
They sat down together on the shaft of a wagon.
“It’s a big fair,” remarked Boryna, looking round the marketplace.
“It’s not small,” she returned, casting a sorrowful glance at the stalls they had left behind them, and heaving a deep sigh. A pause ensued; then, trying to shake off her sadness, she spoke:
“Ah, well it is for anyone who is a Squire! Once I saw the daughter of the Squire of Vola, with other ladies, buying, as they did at every fair, such quantities of things that they were carried by a manservant!”
“ ‘Who goes oft to the fair shall lose all he has there.’ ” Boryna remarked.
“The proverb is not for them.”
“Not so long as they can borrow from Jews,” he answered, with such bitterness that Yagna stared at him, knowing not what to reply. Looking away from her, he asked, in a low voice:
“They have been to you with a proposal from Michael, Voytek’s son, have they not?”
“They went away as they came. Such a dolt, to send a proposal to me!”
Boryna then rose hurriedly, taking out of his bosom a kerchief, and something else wrapped up in paper.
“Keep this, Yagna; I must go to Antek.”
Her eyes sparkled at the name. “Is he at the fair?”
“Yes; down that lane, selling the corn.—Take this, Yagna, it is for you,” he added, seeing her gaze at the kerchief with bewildered eyes.
“Do you give it me? Me—really? Oh, how pretty it is!” She unwrapped the paper. There lay the very same ribbon that had pleased her so vastly just before. “Can you be in earnest?” she exclaimed. “Why do you give me all this? It is very costly, and the kerchief is of pure silk.”
“Take it, Yagna, take it, it is all bought for you. And when some peasant shall come to drink to you, do not drink back to him. Why hurry?—Now, I must go.”
“Are these things my own? Say you true?”
“And wherefore should I lie to you?”
“I can scarce believe it,” she said, unwrapping the kerchief, and then the ribbon again.
“God be with you, Yagna!”
“How I thank you, Matthias!”
He left her. Yagna once more unwrapped the things, and gloated over them.
