There the dziads had formed a lane from the church to the road, crying out, screaming, uttering prayers, or asking alms, each in his own way; some were playing on fiddles, and droning out hymns in mournful voices; others on flageolets or concertinas; and all together causing such a racket as almost to make one deaf.
The vestry, too, was full of people: so full that they were sorely squeezed against the tables, where the organist and his son (the one who had been at school) were taking down the names given for the Memorial offerings.
Kuba got through the press, and rolled off a long list of names to the organist, who wrote them down, and received for each soul three kopeks, or as many eggs (in case one had no ready cash).
Vitek was not able to push forward so fast, for his bare feet were sorely trod upon, but he got on as well as he could, clutching the money in his hand. When, however, he found himself in front of the organist at the table, he felt suddenly overwhelmed and tongue-tied with confusion. What! only farmers and farmers’ wives round him—almost all those of the village … ? Even the miller’s wife was there, wearing a hat like the wife of the Squire!—And the blacksmith and the Voyt, with their dames—all giving the names of those whose souls they wished remembered; some as many as a score of them—all the family, and their fathers and forefathers—And he … what name could he give? His own father, his mother—what names had they? Could he tell? For whom, then, should his offering be made? … “O my Jesus, my little Jesus!” he cried in his soul; but his mouth remained wide open, and he stood there like a witling. His heart was wrung with an agony of grief, he could hardly draw his breath, and he felt so faint that he was like to drop down as one dead. But he could not stay there; the crowd shoved him aside into a corner, beneath the holy water stoup: and, in order not to fall, he crouched down with his head against the tin basin, while tears gushed forth and fell, like the beads of some rosary of desolation. It was in vain that he tried to keep them back; he was so shaken, so unnerved in every limb, that he had not even the strength to clench his teeth and stand up. So he crept into a corner out of sight, and wept abundant tears—the bitter tears of a fatherless, motherless boy.
“Mother, O Mother!” something within him was crying, and tearing his heart to pieces. … He could not think why each of the other lads had his father and his mother, while he alone was without either—bereft—and how bereft—of both!
“Jesus, my Jesus!” he sobbed, crying out like a poor bird strangling in a snare. … It was then that Kuba came upon him and said:
“Vitek, have you given in your Memorial offering?”
“Not yet,” he returned; and, suddenly drying his eyes, he forced his way back to the table. Yes: he would give names. Did it concern anyone that he had no parents he knew? If he had none, it was his own affair. If he was a foundling, a foundling let him be.—He therefore took heart, wiped his eyes, and boldly gave the names Josephine, Marianna, Anthony—the first that occurred to him.
He paid, took the change, and went with Kuba into the church to pray and hear the priest read the names of his dear departed!
A catafalque, bearing a coffin at its summit, had been raised in the centre of the church. Round it many tapers were burning, while the priest read aloud from the pulpit an interminable list of names. Now and then he stopped, and the whole congregation said the Paters, Aves, and Credos that should relieve the souls of the faithful departed.
Vitek knelt down by the side of Kuba; the latter took out a rosary, and counted thereon all the prayers which the priest had recommended. Vitek too recited a few prayers; but the monotonous sounds soon made him drowsy, and, worn out by the heat of the place and his recent fit of tears, he presently rested his head against Kuba and went to sleep.
In the afternoon, all the Boryna family were present at the Vespers which were sung once a year in the churchyard mortuary chapel. Antek and his family, the blacksmith and his, Yuzka accompanied by Yagustynka, and Vitek, and Kuba dragging himself in the rear, had come, determined to make the most they could of All Souls’ Day.
As a man shuts his weary eyelids, and plunges into dark unfathomable shadows, so evening was closing in; the wind sounded with a dreary voice, long drawn out, and wafted the odours of many a mouldering leaf, redolent with unpleasant effluvia.
The countryside was serene, with the strange and sombre calm of that anniversary of sadness. The crowds went about their way—as it were, in painful silence; their trampling boots echoed with dull dead sounds: the roadside trees waved their boughs restlessly, and swayed overhead with a sad sullen murmur.
In front of the lich-gate and about the graves along the wall, stood rows of barrels, and many a dziad was close by. It was by this road that the people came along to the burial-ground. The twilight had already covered the world, sprinkling it with its ashen greyness, although there twinkled athwart its folds many a rustic lamp (fed with butter for oil!), with yellow flickering flame. Each one, on entering the churchyard, took from his wallet either bread, or cheese, or a piece of bacon or of sausage; or a skein of thread, or else a handful of combed flax; sometimes even a string of dried mushrooms. These they deposited piously in one of the barrels that stood open there; they
