The Peasants

tables with fine linen cloth, exchanging a few words with her brothers, or strolling about the place and looking out at the scenery. But she felt no pleasure in all this: not the least. She was going to dance and hear the band play, and was fond both of music and of dancing: that was all. Her soul, like the present day of autumn serenity, was cloudless and radiant, but lifeless. Were it not that all things reminded her it was her wedding-day, she might even have forgotten that. At the “Unplaiting,” the day before, Boryna had put in her hands eight strings of coral beads⁠—all that his wives had left at their death. And now they lay at the bottom of her trunk: she had not even put them on. Today she felt no interest in anything. Willingly would she have flown away somewhere⁠—but where, she knew not! Everything teased her; and what her mother had told her about Antek recurred persistently to her mind. What! he speak evil of her? She could not, would not believe it: the very thought made tears start.⁠—Yet, it might be!⁠ ⁠… Yesterday, she was washing linen; he had passed by, and never looked her way! In the morning, she was going with Boryna to confession. Antek, coming in their direction, had turned back as from a savage dog.⁠ ⁠… Well, then, let him snarl at her if he would; let him snarl!

She began to feel herself in indignant revolt against him. But a sudden flash of memory brought that evening back to her, when they had returned together from plucking cabbages at his father’s. The recollection went to her head, her mind was wrapped and plunged in flames all over; it revived so intensely that it was not to be borne. Thereupon, to make a diversion, she cried point-blank to her mother:

“I’ll have you know I won’t let my hair be cut off after the wedding!”

“Here’s a clever one for you! Who ever heard of a girl whose hair was not shorn after the wedding?”

“At manors, and in towns.”

“Certainly. Yes, they⁠—they have to keep their hair, to cheat the folk, and pass for what they are not.⁠—Why would you bring in a new order of things, you? Let the manor girls make laughingstocks of themselves by all means; let them go about, hairy as Jewesses. They are fools, and they may. But you⁠—no town rubbish, a daughter of the soil from grandsire and greatgrandsire⁠—you have to do as has ever been done amongst our peasantry!⁠—Ah, I know them, those town conceits and fancies!”

Yagna, however, stuck to her point. Eva, an experienced woman, who knew many a village, and year after year went on foot to Chenstohova with the pilgrim companies, tried her best to persuade the girl; so did Yagustynka, though according to her way seasoning her advice with jests and bitter railleries. At last she said:

“Keep your tresses, do; they will serve Boryna, when he beats you. He’ll twist them round his hand, and so use his stick better upon you. And then you will cut them off by yourself.⁠ ⁠… I knew a woman.⁠ ⁠…” But here she broke off. Vitek had come to call her. She was staying with Boryna since Antek’s expulsion, Yuzka proving too young for a housekeeper. Now helping Eva in the cooking, she would once in a while run round to the house to see to things there, as the old man’s brain was topsy-turvy that day. Ever since morning, Yuzka had been at the blacksmith’s, smartening herself; and Kuba lay continually ill in bed.

The lad had come in a hurry. “Kuba wants you sorely: pray come this instant.”

“Off at once!⁠—Good friends, I shall just see what it is, and be back here directly.”

“Hurry, Yagna; we are expecting the bridesmaids,” said Dominikova warningly.

But she made no haste at all, seemingly in a drowsy fit.⁠ ⁠… Her work fell from her fingers, and she would stand sometimes gazing vacantly out of window. Her soul was as though turned to water within her⁠—water that flowed hither and thither, and now and again splashed and broke on some rock of memory.

In the cottage, the hubbub was ever increasing, with the constant arrival of many a dame⁠—now a kinswoman, now a housewife: these, according to ancient custom, bringing Dominikova fowls, or a loaf of wheaten bread, cake, salt, flour, pieces of bacon, or a silver rouble wrapped up in paper⁠—all these things as thank-offerings for the invitation, and to make up for the heavy expenses incurred.

Each of them drank a little nip of sweetened vodka, chatted a few minutes with the old dame, admired everything, and hurried away.

Dominikova herself superintended the cooking, cleared things away, and saw that everything was duly done; not omitting to scold her sons for laziness; and, indeed, they dawdled much, and each of them slipped out whenever he could into the village to the Voyt’s, where the musicians and the bridesmen had gathered already.

Few people attended High Mass, and this vexed his Reverence, because folk had forgotten the Divine Service on account of a mere wedding. Which was very true; but people also said to themselves that such a wedding was not to be witnessed every Sunday.

All those invited came driving in at once after the noonday meal from the neighbouring villages.

The sun, shedding a dim hazy splendour over the autumn fields, had begun to roll westward; the ground seemed shiny and glistening as if with dew, the pond shimmered tremulously, the roadside ditches had a glassy gleam; the whole landscape was soaked in the dying light and the cooling heat of the last autumn days.

Burning down like a candle, the day was slowly approaching extinction.

The village of Lipka, however, was inspired with all the animation of a fair.

No sooner had the Vesper bells rung for the first time than all the musicians at the Voyt’s sallied forth into the road.

First came the fiddlers, each marching abreast with a flutist; then the bass-viol-players, and the drummers, to whose instruments