But, fast as he went, his burning memories went with him. He saw no one, though several men passed by; and he only calmed down at the village, on perceiving Yanek’s mother, sitting by a ditch, her youngest son rolling in the sand beside her, and a flock of geese grazing between the poplar-trees.
“You have come pretty far with your geese, Madam,” he said, stopping to wipe his face.
“I went out to meet Yanek; he must be here at any minute.”
“I just saw him at the skirt of the forest.”
“Ah, is he, then, so near?” she ejaculated, starting up and chiding her geese for getting into the rye near the roadside, where they were doing considerable damage.
“His britzka was standing near the crucifix; he was in talk with some woman or other.”
“Yes, he must have met an acquaintance and had a chat. Good kindhearted boy! he cannot even pass by a strange dog without patting it.—And who was she?”
“I could not be quite sure, but fancy she was Yagna.” He saw the old dame purse her lips at the name, and added, smiling significantly: “I could not tell, for they were slipping away into the thickets. On account of the heat, no doubt.”
“Saints of the Lord! what has come to your mind? Yanek!—to mix with such a one!”
“She’s as good as others!” he retorted, suddenly angry. “Better, it may be.”
The organist’s wife bent over her knitting, and her fingers wagged more quickly.
“What! Yanek, on the very verge of the priesthood, to have anything to do with such a woman!” And then she recalled certain tales she had heard about priests, and dug a knitting-needle into her hair in perplexity, and resolved to see into this and inquire. … But Antek had gone; and now there came a great cloud of dust upon the road; and two minutes later Yanek was embracing her with the tenderest affection, and crying out from his heart:
“O my dear, my darling mother!”
“Saints of the Lord!—Let go, you young giant, let go: you’re choking me!” But when he had let go, she fell herself to hugging and kissing, and gloating over him with eager eyes.
“Poor little mite! How thin they have made you! How pale, poor son of mine! and how wretched-looking!”
“One does not grow fat on broth of holy water!” he answered, laughing, and tossing his little brother up in the air, till he crowed with delight.
“Fear nothing; we’ll stuff you and puff you out in no time,” she said, stroking his cheeks with affection.
“Well, let us drive on, Mother dear, and we shall be sooner home.”
“Ah, those geese! Lord, Lord! In the rye again!”
He ran to drive them off, for they were plucking at the rye-stalks and devouring the grain at will. Then he placed his brother in the cart, and walked on himself along the middle of the road.
“Look there!” his mother cried; “how that brat has smeared his face!” She pointed to the boy on the britzka.
“Yes he has made free with my strawberries. Eat away, eat away!—I met Yagna coming out of the wood with them, and she gave me some.” He coloured bashfully.
“Boryna was just telling me he had met you both. …”
“I did not see him; he must have passed at some distance.”
“Child, folk in a village can see things through walls—even things that have not taken place!” She laid stress on the words, looking down on her twinkling knitting-needles.
Yanek had apparently not caught her meaning. Seeing a flight of doves sweeping low above the rye, he aimed a stone at one of them, saying merrily:
“They are the priest’s: anyone can tell that, so fat they are!”
“Be still, Yanek! Someone else might hear you!” she gently rebuked him, though her thoughts already saw him a parish priest, and herself spending her old age by his side, and living the rest of her years in peace and happiness.
“And when is Felix coming for the vacation?”
“Why, Mother, know ye not? He is in jail.”
“Saints of the Lord! In jail! What was the misdeed?—And I always said and foretold he would come to a bad end!—Such a scapegrace!—Had he become a scrivener of low degree—that would have sufficed him—quite; but the miller wanted him to be a doctor, forsooth! … And they were so stuck up, so proud of their darling! Now he is in jail—and a pretty comfort to them!” she said, trembling all over with malevolent satisfaction.
“But, Mother, it is not that at all: he is in the Warsaw Citadel.”
“In the Citadel? Then” (she lowered her voice) “it is some political misdeed!”
Yanek either could not or would not tell her any more, and she went on, in a faltering voice:
“My dear child, remember never to have aught to do with any such affairs.”
“No! In our seminary, anyone who so much as speaks of them is expelled.”
“You see? They would expel you, and you would never be a priest, and I—I should die of shame and sorrow! O God! have mercy upon us!”
“My dear mother, have no fear for me.”
“And you are aware how hard we work and strive for the bettering of your lot; what trouble we have—so many of us, and our gains always growing less; and how, were it not for the bit of land we have, our priest would drive us to die of starvation. Aye, he now settles matters directly with the peasants, both for weddings and for funerals: who ever heard of such a thing! He says Father takes too much from the peasants—and he becomes their benefactor at other folk’s expense!”
“But,” Yanek faltered here, “Father really did take too much!”
“What! will ye rise up in judgment on your own father?—Even were this true, for whom is he greedy? For himself? No: for you all; for you and your schooling!” She felt deeply hurt.
Yanek was going to ask her forgiveness, but he just then heard a bell tinkle on the other side of the pond, and cried:
“Hark, Mother! it must be the priest taking
