“Woe betide you! I’ll beat your foul mouth to pulp!” He seized and shook her; but Antek leaped forwards to protect her, and shouted in his turn:
“And I say it too: she is a wanton, a harlot, and anyone may know her that cares!”—But he said no more. Boryna, in a paroxysm of rage, struck him such a blow in the face that he fell with his head breaking the pane of a glazed press, which he brought to the floor with him. Springing up instantly, streaming with blood, he charged his father.
They both rushed at each other like mad dogs, with a mutual clutch, driving and being driven backward and forward about the room, pushing and hurling one another against the bed, the great trunk, the walls, till their heads rang again. A horrible outcry arose: the womenfolk tried to separate them, but they rolled down upon the floor, so closely gripped in hatred that they turned over and over, each strangling each, each crushing the other, as best he could.
By great good fortune, the neighbours ran in while it was time, and separated them.
Antek was hustled away to the other lodgings, and water dashed over him; he was faint with exhaustion caused by loss of blood, for the glass had gashed him very deep.
The old man had no hurt at all; only a slight tear in the short jacket he wore, and a few scratches on his face, that was livid with rage. … He swore at the folk who had come, shut the front door on them, and sat down by the fire.
But nothing could avail to calm him.
He could not put out of his memory the words uttered about Yagna: they stabbed him like a knife.
“That hound! I will never forgive him, never!” was the oath he then swore to himself. “My Yagna! how could he?”—But then he recalled what he had heard said of her in former times and disregarded. He turned hot, he felt as if he were choking, and a wretched sense of dejection came over him. How, if his own son said such things, were people’s mouths to be stopped? Oh, that villain! The very recollection of those words burned him like fire.
After Yuzka had cleaned away all the traces of the struggle, and given him his supper, though late, he attempted to eat, but could not, and laid his spoon down. “Have you given the horses their provender?” he inquired of Kuba.
“Of course.”
“Vitek—where is he?”
“Gone for Ambrose, to see to Antek’s head. His face is swollen like a pipkin,” he added, hurrying out; for he had chosen this moonlight night to go out shooting.
“ ‘When dogs have too much bread, each flies at t’other’s head,’ ” he grunted.
The old man stumped down into the village, but refrained from visiting Yagna, though the light was gleaming bright from her window. He turned away just outside her door, and went round to the mill. It was a chilly star-besprinkled night, and so clear that the whole millpond shone like glittering quicksilver. Over the deserted roads the trees cast long swaying shadows. It was late; they were putting the lights out in the houses, whose whitewashed walls now stood out more distinctly among the skeleton orchard trees. Silence and darkness had swallowed up all the hamlet: only the mill-wheel and the water clattered and babbled monotonously. Matthias walked on, crossing to the other side. As he went, his anger grew stronger, together with his hatred. When he got to the tavern, he sent for the Voyt, and they both drank till midnight. He could not, however, drown the gnawing pain within him. Only he then registered a resolve.
No sooner had he risen the next morning than he went round to the other lodgings. Antek was in bed, his face bandaged with a bloodstained rag.
“Get out of my home this instant!” he said, “and let no trace of you remain! If you want war, if you will go to law, then do so; bring an action, and get back your property! What you have sown of your own grain, you may reap, when summer comes. And now, away with you! Let me set eyes on you no more! Do you hear?” he roared. Antek set about dressing slowly.
“By noon, you will have to be off!” he added, calling out to them from the passage.
Antek remained as dumb as though he had not heard.
“Yuzka, call Kuba: let him put the mare to the cart, and take them whither they want to go!”
“But there is something the matter with Kuba. He lies groaning on his pallet, and says he cannot rise at all, his lame leg hurts him so.”
“A sluggard, who only wants to lie abed!” And Boryna saw to the farm-duties by himself.
Kuba nevertheless was seriously ill, but would not say what the matter was with him, though pressed by his master. As he lay, he uttered such groans that the horses came up to him, sniffed at his face and licked it, while Vitek brought him water in a pail, and secretly washed certain blood-smirched rags in the river.
Boryna, intent as he was on the departure of Antek and his family, noticed nothing of all this.
They departed.
Without clamour or disturbance, they packed everything, carried their belongings out, and made up their bundles; Hanka well-nigh swooning with distress; Antek refreshing her with drinks of water and hurrying her on, that they might be away—out of that father’s house—as quickly as ever they could.
He would take no horse from his father, but borrowed one from Klemba, and took everything over to Hanka’s parent, at the very end of the village and beyond the tavern.
Several peasants had come in from the hamlet, along with Roch as their leader, desirous of reconciling them; but to this neither father nor son would agree.
“No,” said the old man; “let him try how he will enjoy his freedom, and bread of his own!”
Antek answered no word to their solicitations; but, lifting his fist,
