“Ye talk as if ye were on their side!” Matthew cried, in a tone of sharp reproach.
“I am on no one’s side. She is no more to me than a stone.”
“O Antek, rescue her!—Do something, for God’s sake! I shall go mad—mad! Think of it: what can she do? where can she go? … Ah, those villains, those sons of dogs, those wolves! … I will swing my ax, and smite, and spare no one!”
“I will not help you in any wise. They have decided: what is one man against them all?—Nothing!”
“Aha!—You have a grudge against her!” Matthew suddenly flashed out.
“Grudge or no grudge, that concerns none but myself!” Antek replied sternly, and leaned back against the well-cover, looking into vacancy. His passion for Yagna, suppressed but not less active, was now raging within him, together with bitter jealousy: both tossing him to and fro, like a tree that groans in the blast.
He looked around him. Matthew was gone. The village seemed a strange place to him—loathsome and blatant exceedingly.
And in the very weather of that memorable day, too, there was something odd and abnormal. The huge swollen disk of the sun shone pallid in the sky; the heat was of a sultriness beyond all that had yet been; the sky was clouded with low-hanging hideous-looking vapours; the wind every now and then sprang up in fitful gusts, and the dust rose in thick whorls and spirals. A storm was at hand; far away, there were flashes along the wooded horizon.
Now had the fermentation amongst the people risen to the highest pitch. They ran about wildly; brawling was heard in almost every hut; women fought together on the millpond banks; the dogs were howling all the time. Scarcely anyone went to work in the fields. The cattle, left at home, lowed plaintively in the byres. Nor was there any Mass on that day, the priest having left the place at daybreak. And every minute the feeling of unrest increased in every mind.
Antek, seeing that the people were gathering on the organist’s premises, shouldered a scythe and went off to one of his fields that was close to the forest. The wind hampered his work, waving the corn to and fro, and blowing into his eyes; but he stood his ground firmly and reaped away, listening—now more calmly—to the distant sounds he heard.
“Perchance they are about it at this instant!” was the thought that flashed through his brain, making his heart beat like a hammer. A wave of rage swept over him: he drew himself up and was on the point of tossing his scythe away and running to the rescue of Yagna; he only mastered himself just in time.
“Whoso has done evil must suffer the penalty!—So be it! So be it!”
The rye bent in ripples round his knees, like the waves of a stormy lake; the gale blew his hair about, drying the sweat of agony on his face. He could barely see anything, for he was in spirit at Yagna’s side—all of him but his arms, with hard trained sinews working instinctively, wielding the scythe and laying the rye low, swath by swath!
Once, however, there came upon the wings of the wind a shriek, loud and long-drawn-out, that came from the village!
He flung the scythe on the ground and sat down in the corn that rose like a wall around him. He grovelled close to the earth, and clung to it with a mighty effort, and held himself down with an iron grasp. And he kept himself fast, and did not weaken, though his eyes wandered away to Lipka; though his heart cried out aloud in terror; though an awful fit of trembling shook him from head to foot.
“All things must take their course: they must! We plough to sow, we sow to reap; and if anything hinder, we pluck it out like an evil weed!”
Thus spoke within his soul an inexorable immemorial Voice.—Whose? … Was it not that of the earth and its inhabitants?
He still felt himself rebelling, but now listened to it with more willing obedience.
“Even so. Everyone has the right to defend himself against a wolf. … Everyone!”
A few last regrets, a few idle thoughts, came still like stinging gusts of wind, wrapping him in darkness, and urging him to rise and act.
But he started to his feet, whetted his scythe, crossed himself, spat on his hands—and set to work with a will, laying low swath after swath with such furious energy that his scythe-blade hissed through the air, and the walls of ripe grain around him resounded to his strokes.
In the village, meantime, the fearful hour of judgment and chastisement had arrived. What took place there can scarcely be related. All Lipka was as in the delirium of a high fever; the people seemed to have gone stark staring mad. Those of more sensible natures kept within doors, or fled to the fields. The others were gathered on the banks of the pond, and so drunk (if we may say so) with rancour that, before wreaking revenge on Yagna, they had begun to wreak their fury on one another, with spiteful words of hate. …
But in a minute the whole multitude had set out to Dominikova’s, like a foaming torrent in spate. The Voytova and Yanek’s mother led them on, and a howling infuriated rabble followed.
They burst into the cabin like a tempest. Dominikova blocked the way—she was trampled down in an instant. Andrew sprang forward to her aid, and was knocked down at once. Lastly, Matthew, standing in front of the inner door, strove to keep them back; but in spite of the club he wielded with all his strength, not half a minute elapsed before he was lying close to the wall, unconscious and with a broken head.
Yagna had locked and bolted herself up in the alcove. When they burst the door open, she appeared, standing with her back to the wall; but she neither made any defence nor uttered any cry. White as a
