And oh, those Obertases!—short of rhythm, vertiginous, wild and frantic, warlike and amorous, full of excitement mingled with dreamy languor and notes of sorrow; throbbing with hot blood, brimming over with geniality and kindliness, in a sudden hailstorm: affectionate voices, dark-blue glances, springtime breezes, and fragrant wafts from blossoming orchards, like the song of fields in the young year; making tears and laughter to burst forth at the same time, and the heart to utter its lay of joy, and the longing soul to go beyond the vast fields around her, beyond the far-off forests, and soar dreaming into the world of All Things, and sing ecstatically the burden, “Oy dana dana!”
And all these dances, beyond the power of words to describe, thus followed one after the other, that our peasantry might make merry in season!
And thus did they take their pleasures at the wedding of Boryna and Yagna.
The hours slipped away in clamour and din and uproar; in noisy merrymaking and dances fast and furious: they did not note that the dawn was spreading in the East, that the daybreak’s streams were slowly pouring their pallor into the night’s black gloom. The stars grew wan, the moon sank; a wind that sprang up beyond the woods passed by, chasing the dark that waxed thinner and thinner: the gnarled tufted trees looked in at the windows, bowing yet lower their slumberous frost-crowned heads, but the folk within were singing and dancing still!
The doors had been thrown wide open; so had the windows; the house, brimming and boiling over with lights and tumult, trembled, creaked and groaned, while the dance went on, now in utterly uncontrollable and rapturous excitement. It seemed to those within—such was their state!—that trees and people, earth and stars, and the hedges and the time-honoured cabin itself, were all wrestling and writhing together, united in one inextricably whirling cluster, blind, intoxicated, raving, and in utter oblivion of all; reeling and rolling from room to room, from wall to wall, from passage to passage, and out into the road and the enormous world, caught in a round that filled the universe—fading away in the long unbroken chain of crimson lights now glowing in the East!
And the music led them on—the tunes played and the songs.
How they kept time in their growling, the gruff bass-viols, uttering their broken humming sounds, like huge humblebees! And how the flutes led the band, merrily whistling and twittering, as in mockery of the drum’s joyful thuds and strokes, swelled by the jingling of its bells that shook with laughter, and floated lightly like a Jew’s beard in the wind! And then how the fiddles took the lead and came to the front, like girls leading the ballet, and sang out loud and shrill at first as though to try their voices—then played with wide, sorrowful, heartrending sweeps of the bow—the lamentations of orphans driven from their homes—and then again, with an instantaneous change, fell into a lilting tune—short, trilling, sharp, like the tripping of a hundred dancers’ heels, at which a hundred full-throated lads shouted themselves out of breath, and quivered all over, and set once more to turn and sing and dance mincingly, laughing and rejoicing, heat rising anew to the head and desire to the heart, lie strong vodka … when they fell again into the slow long notes of sorrow and weeping—as dew upon the plains!—uttering the notes of our own beloved tune, most near to the heart, instinct with mighty yearning tenderness, and making all dance deliriously to the strains of our Mazovian air!
The candles were growing dim, so near was the day; a dingy ashen twilight pervaded the room where they danced. But they still took their enjoyment as heartily as ever. If any found the liquor now flowing too scantily, he sent to the tavern for more vodka, sought out companions, and drank with them to his liking.
Some had withdrawn; some were tired and resting awhile; some, overtaken by drink, were sleeping off its fumes in the passage or by the door: others, still more intoxicated, were stretched under the hedges. All the rest danced on, danced ever.
At last, some of the more sober made up a group by the porch and, beating the floor in measure, sang thus:
O wedding-guests, come home!
Already sings the lark;
The wood is deep and dark,
And ye have far to roam:
Come home!O wedding-guests, come home!
There’s danger in delay:
Athwart our weary way
The loud floods roll and foam:
Come home!
But no one cared to listen to them and their song!
XII
It was grey dawn when Vitek, tired out by the merrymaking and driven home by Yagustynka, hastened to Boryna’s hut.
A little watch-light was burning there, like a glowworm. Vitek looked in at the window, and beheld the old dziad, Roch, sitting at the table, where he was singing hymns.
The boy silently glided away to the stable, and was fumbling at the door-catch, when he jumped back with a cry of astonishment. A dog had leaped upon him, uttering a whine.
“What, Lapa, Lapa? ’tis you back again, poor wretch!” he cried, and sat down on the doorstep, overcome with joy.—“Hungry and starving: is it not so?”
He had put by a bit of sausage, saved from the feast, which he now took out of his bosom to offer the dog. But it did not care for food just then: it barked, laid its head on the lad’s breast, and whined for sheer delight.
“Did they starve you, poor thing? did they
