The newly married couple had the first places, and all the others sat about them in order of precedence, as they were higher in standing, in possessions, or more advanced in age—from the elders to the girls and children. Tables had been set up along three of the walls, and yet there was scarce room for them all. The bridesmen and the musicians remained standing, the former to serve the guests.
There was a hush. The organist stood up and said a prayer aloud; after which, a glass went round, with the sentiment: Health and enjoyment!
The cooks and bridesmen then bore in a huge and deep dish of smoking food, singing the while:
Friends, we bring you dainty food:
Fowls in rice-soup boiled and stewed!
And, carrying in the second dish:
Tripe with pepper, spiced and hot:
He’s a fool that likes it not!
The musicians, stationed near the fireplace, played various tunes very softly, to give more savour to the food.
All the company ate with becoming refinement, and deliberation; few spoke at all, and for some time the room resounded only with the sound of munching and the clatter of spoons. When they had to some extent slaked their appetites, the smith set another bottle in circulation; and now they began conversing (though in low tones) to one another across the table.
Yagna ate scarcely anything at all. In vain did Boryna urge and coax her, entreating her as one entreats a child to eat. She could not even swallow the meat before her; she was so hot, so tired!
“Yagna, are you content, sweet? Most beautiful Yagna, you will be as happy with me as ever you were with your mother. … Yagna, you will be a lady—a lady! I’ll hire a girl, that you may not be overworked.”—He spoke in hushed tones, and looking with love into her eyes, caring not for what folk might say; and they began to make fun of him openly.
“He looks like a cat after bacon!”
“How the old fellow flaunts his wantonness! Beside him, a cock is nothing at all.”
“Oh, he is enjoying himself, Grandfather Boryna is!”
“As a dog does out in the frost,” old Simon here muttered spitefully.
All held their sides with laughter, and the miller laid his face down on the table and beat it with his fists for sheer joy!
Once more the cooks entered, proclaiming:
Here is a dish of Turkish wheat,
Cooked with plenty of lard, for lean folk to eat!
“Yagna, just bend over to me, I’ll tell you a thing,” the Voyt said, plucking at her dress behind her bridegroom, whose next neighbour he was.
“I would be your child’s godfather,” he cried, laughing, and gloating over her with greedy eyes.
At this, she grew very red; and the women, seeing this, fell a-laughing and jesting yet more facetiously, some setting to explain to her how she ought to behave to her husband.
“You’ll have to warm a featherbed for him every evening before the fire, or he’ll be cold as ice.”
“And especially see he has much fat to eat: it will keep him in good condition.”
“And pet him well, with your arms round his neck.”
“And drive him with a gentle hand, that he may not know he is driven at all!”
So they babbled on, each sentence freer than the last, as happens when women have taken too much, and let their tongues run away with them.
All in the room were shaking with merriment, and things at last went so far that the miller’s wife set to lecturing them on their duties towards the girls and little ones present; and the organist pointed out how grievous a sin it was to cause others to offend by evil example.
“What? is this bellows-blower forbidding people every pleasure in life?”
“Being close to the priest, he thinks himself a saint!”
“Let him stop his ears, an it like him not.” And more unpleasant cries began to be heard, for he was disliked in the village.
“We have a wedding today, and therefore, my good people, I, your Voyt, assure you it is no sin to enjoy yourselves, laugh at things laughable, and make merry.”
“And our Lord Himself used to go to weddings and drink wine,” Ambrose added seriously; but no one made out what he said, as he was now tipsy, and sitting by the door besides. Then all fell to talking, joking, clinking glasses, and eating more and more slowly, in order to get more compactly filled up; some even, to make room for the most food possible, undid their girdles, and sat straight and stiff.
Again the cooks entered, with the following couplet:
It grunting, squealing, rooting once about the garden ran:
But now, for all the harm it did, ’twill pay the husbandman!
“Well, they have done the thing grandly!” the people declared.
“Truly, this wedding must come at least to a thousand zloty!”
“Oh, she can well afford it: has she not got six acres of land thereby?”
“Just look at Yagna! Is she not gloomy as night?”
“As a set-off, Boryna’s eyes are shining like a wildcat’s.”
“Say, like tinder, my friend—rotten tinder!”
“Aye, the man will weep over this day yet.”
“No. He is not of the weeping sort. Of the cudgelling, rather.”
“Just what I said to the Voyt’s wife, when she told me the marriage had been settled.”
“Ah, I wonder why she is not here tonight.”
“Out of the question. Her child may be due any day.”
“But I’d lay my head that in no long time—say, before the Carnival begins—Yagna will be again running after the lads.”
“Matthew is only waiting for that.”
“I know. Vavrek’s wife overheard him say so in the tavern.”
“Because he was not asked to the wedding.”
“Yes. The old fellow would have had him, but Dominikova was against it.—All the folk know why, do they not?”
“Well, all say so; but what has anybody seen?”
“Bartek Koziol saw them in the wood last spring.”
“He is a liar and a thief: Dominikova accused him of stealing a pig, and what he says may be mere spite.”
“But others too—there be others that have eyes.”
“All this will end ill … you
