“I have just come here from the organist’s, where they need me for the washing. Matthias was there only just now, together with Yagna, to invite them to the wedding. They are coming. Yes, everyone to his people: the rich to the rich. They have asked the priest also.”
“What! have they dared His Reverence!” Hanka exclaimed.
“Is he, then, so sacred a being? They asked him, and he said he might possibly come. Why not? Is the girl ill-looking? will the food be bad? and will there be little to drink? The miller and wife and daughter have promised. Ho, ho! There will not have been such a wedding since Lipka was Lipka!—I know, for I shall be cooking with Eva—her from the miller’s. Ambrose has killed a pig for them, and sausages are making now …” She broke off abruptly, noticing that no one asked any questions, or spoke at all. She looked round at them as they sat gloomily there, and, eyeing them attentively, cried out:
“I say! there is a storm brewing here!”
“Storm or no storm, what is that to you?” the smith’s wife answered, so tartly that Yagustynka was offended, rose, and went over to Yuzka in the other lodgings, who (the children having just departed) was setting chairs and benches in order.
“Father is not likely to grudge himself anything,” the smith’s wife remarked, in an aggrieved tone.
“Oh, he can well afford it!” Hanka rejoined, and broke off abruptly, seeing Antek look fiercely at her.—They sat waiting in almost complete silence. From time to time a word was said; then that dull, crushing, ominous speechlessness came over them once more.
“He must have cash enough: he is always selling things, and never spending.”
Antek’s only rejoinder to his sister’s words was a wave of the hand; and he went out of the room to get some fresh air. He was feeling ever more and more uneasy; nor could he tell why. He now expected his father, and felt impatient at the delay, yet glad in his heart not to have met with him yet.—“It is not the land you are angry about, it is Yagna!”—Those words, uttered by the smith the day before, now suddenly came back to him.—“He is a lying dog!” was the cry of rage which burst from his lips. And he set to work at the outer wall which was to protect the hut from the side of the courtyard. Vitek brought him litter from the heap; Antek drove in the laths to form the wall, and rammed the litter down inside it; but his hands were trembling, he had to stop working more than once, and lean against the cabin walls, and look out through the bare leafless trees over the pond to Yagna’s hut.—No, it was not love that was now growing within him, but anger and hatred in numberless billows! She, the jade—she, the hateful one!—They had thrown her a bone, and off she went after it!
Such were his thoughts. But then there swept over him remembrances coming up—whence, he knew not—laying siege to his heart, clinging to his mind, even visible to his senses … and the sweat bedewed his brow, his eyes flashed, a thrill ran through him.—Ah, there in the orchard! Ah, then in the forest! And again, when they once were coming from town together!
All at once he reeled; he again saw that burning face, those deep-blue eyes, those wondrous full red lips; and he heard her quick-drawn breaths of passion, and her voice, low and husky with love and rapture, calling to him: “Antek! Antek!” And she was again bending towards him, very close—he felt her touch him with all her throbbing self! … But he rubbed his eyes to drive away that too sweet phantom, and his implacable resentment again oozed icily from his heart, as the drops fall from the icicles under the eaves, when the spring sun shines upon them, and love awakens once more; within his soul, agonized yearning lifted her thorn-crowned head once more—a yearning so bitter that he would fain have eased it by clutching at any pain whatsoever, or by shrieking to rouse the dead!
“May a brimstone thunderbolt strike her!” he cried out; but, suddenly recollecting himself, he cast a sharp glance round, fearing lest Vitek should have understood whom he meant.
He had spent those three last weeks in a fever of expectancy, awaiting the happening of some miracle. As for him, he could do nothing, prevent nothing!
And of late, insane thoughts had often surged up in his mind, insane resolves. Often had he gone out to meet her, and many a night had he watched outside her cabin, in the rain and the cold. But she had not come out.—She shunned him!
No, no, no! Every instant he grew more angry against her, against the whole framework of things. She was his father’s!—A strange woman, an adventuress, a thief who had robbed him of his land, the most precious of all possessions! Smite her he would—aye, beat the life out of her!
More than once he had determined to confront his father, and tell him to his face: “You cannot have Yagna; she is mine!” But the very thought made his hair stand on end.—What would his father, what would all the village say?
So now she, that same Yagna, was to be his stepmother—his mother … of a sort! How could that be? Was it not a sin, a most grievous one? He was afraid to think of it: the thought of some awful judgment of God at hand made his heart die within him. … And yet, to say nothing—to bear all this within himself, as one bearing in his bosom coals of fire that burned to the bone—that was beyond the endurance of man!
And the wedding was but a week away!
“Master is coming,” Vitek cried; and Antek felt he was shaking with dismay.
It was getting dark.
It was getting cold, too;
