On they plodded as best they could, to reach the road soon and be home before night: already the fields were turning grey, and over the snowy wilds long dark streaks, like wreaths of smoke, began to appear. They got to the road at last and, half dead with weariness, fell on their knees before the crucifix. It stood at the edge of the forest, close to the highway, sheltered by four huge birch-trees, with their white smocks of bark and boughs which dangled like tresses. On a cross of black wood hung a crucified Christ, made of sheet-iron, and painted with lively glowing colours. The winds had partly torn the figure away, for it was suspended by one arm only, and battered the cross as it swung, creaking rustily, as with an appeal for succour and rescue. The weatherbeaten birches would conceal it, as they shook and tossed to and fro; clouds of snow, too, drifted past, hiding it under a white mist, through which occasional glimpses of Christ’s livid body and bleeding face were seen, peering forth from that pallid veil, and filling the heart of the beholder with compassion. On this old Bylitsa gazed with awe and crossed himself, but he durst say nothing; for Hanka’s face, set, stern, hard, incomprehensible, was like the night now coming on, with blasts, and dim dark snow-tempests: ominously mysterious. He thought that she saw nothing, heeded nothing. And indeed she sat lost in dreary thought, always revolving that one fact—that Antek had been unfaithful. Within her there was a tempest of sighs as heart-rending as that body of Christ crucified—of tears frozen to ice, yet still burning her to death—of clamorous outcries which agony was wringing from her young life! “Shameless! Without any fear of Heaven!—Her son-in-law, guilty of incest!—O God! O God!” The horror of it swept over her as a hurricane. At first dismayed, she presently seethed with angry resentful emotion—like the forest she had seen bowing to the blast, then rising in fury to resist it. “Let us go on ... and faster!” she cried. Lifting her bundle on to her shoulders and bending forwards under it, she went forth into the road, never looking back upon the old man, but urged forward by unquenchable implacable resentment. “Oh, I will pay you for all this; yea, I will pay you in full!” she said, wailing bitterly in spirit; and the bare poplar-trees wailed along with her, as they did battle with the storm.