And, indeed, to whom could she go? They might give her something, but with it also a word of pity ... such pity as might well wring the life-blood out of the heart!... No: the Lord Jesus was trying her, had sent her a cross: perhaps He would reward her ere long.... And, in any case, she would bear all—never give way or let anyone pity or mock her! In these last times, she had suffered so much that every part of her shook with agony, each crushing her with its own particular pang. It was not because of her poverty and the slights that went with it, the hunger in her cabin, and the food, insufficient even for the children; not because Antek drank his earnings away in the tavern with those boon companions of his, caring nothing for his family, and often (when he had crept home by stealth, like a vagabond dog) answering any word of remonstrance with a blow. She could forgive all that. “He was out of sorts, and his mood would pass, if she did but wait patiently.”—But that he was unfaithful to her, that she could not forget! No, she could not! What, with a wife and children, yet mindful of neither, and so utterly absorbed in _her_! The thought tore at her heart like the red-hot pincers of mediæval tortures. “He loves Yagna, he dotes upon her: she is the cause of all this!” And the anguish of neglect and scorn and contumely; and her shame, her jealousy, her craving for revenge—all these monsters were incessantly tormenting her and plunging their venomous fangs into her heart! “Have mercy, O Lord! Spare me, O Jesus!” she would groan in spirit, raising to Heaven those eyes of hers, red with ever-falling tears. She quickened her pace; the gale was so high upon the hills not yet sheltered by the forest, that she felt intolerably cold. The women with her, on the contrary, slackened their steps and now lagged behind—blurs almost unseen in the mist of swirling whiteness. The forest was near; and when that mist cleared up for an instant, it suddenly appeared on the snowy plain like a huge wall of trunks in serried array. “Come on faster,” she called out impatiently; “we shall rest when we get to the wood.” But they were in no hurry, stopping frequently, and crouching down on the snow, heads away from the wind, like a covey of partridges, while they talked together. To her call, Filipka answered in surly fashion: “Hanka is like a dog speeding after a crow—thinks she will get it if she hastes.” “Poor thing!” murmured Krakalina, sympathetically; “how she has come down in the world!” “Oh, well, she was warm enough at Boryna’s, and has tasted good things: let her now taste things that are evil. Some starve all the years of their lives, yet none pities them.” “There was a time when she would not have bid us good day.” “My dear, there is a saying: ‘Wealth gives a wreath to the brow; poverty, wings to the feet.’” “Once I would have borrowed a mallet of her, and she said it was for her own use alone.”