He drew up the blanket over his chest, turned his face to the wall, and answered not one word more to all her heated arguments; only, when she at last burst into tears, he whispered mockingly: “‘If a woman’s tongue fail, she thinks tears will prevail.’” On the point in discussion, he had come to a strong conviction. Whilst he was laid up, the things he had heard of old against Yagna had all come back to him: he had pondered them well in his mind, gathered them together, and thought them over.—And now such bitter exasperation took hold of him for his inability to quit his bed, that he would toss upon it all day with silent angry curses, following, with the fierce eyes of a falcon, every step that Yagna took. She, pale and drooping, would go about the house like a sleep-walker, looking at him with the wistful eyes of an ill-treated child, and sighing so deeply that he could not but feel some compassion for her—though her sighs inflamed his jealousy still more. And so things dragged on in the hut till Sunday. She, who by nature was extremely sensitive, could hardly bear it any more, and, like a delicate flower that feels the first touch of frost, began to pine and waste away. Daily she looked worse and worse, could sleep no more, was unable to sit still, and spoiled all she did, her work slipping through her fingers. She lived in perpetual dread besides. The old man still kept his bed, moaning, saying never one word of kindness to her, but fixing his gloomy hostile eyes upon her constantly, until she could no longer support it. Life was a burden. And also she was deeply distressed and anxious at getting no more news from Antek. Since Twelfth Night he had never come, though more than once, in spite of the mortal fear she was prey to, she had repaired to the hayrick. Of course she durst ask no one for news of him. And by this time she loathed her cabin so heartily that she would several times in the day run out to see her mother. But Dominikova was mostly either visiting patients or in church, and, when at home, had only sour looks and bitter reproaches for her. The lads, too, went about moody and sullen, ever since their mother had taken a flax-swingle to Simon for having spent four whole _zloty_ in drink at the tavern on Twelfth Night! To get through the day somehow, Yagna would also look in at the neighbours’; but with them too she felt ill at ease. Without telling her to begone, they let their words drop sparingly, sifting them, so to speak: all were very, very sorry that Boryna had fallen ill, and had much to say against the evil times in which they lived.