After a time the young people smiled and laughed; for Teresa, the soldier’s wife, was asking them funny riddles. In a while, someone coming in said that Boryna was back from the law-court, and drinking in the tavern with his companions: at which Yagna quickly and quietly slipped out. Antek slipped out too, catching up with her at the outer entrance on the very threshold; he seized her hand fast, and led her on to the outer yard, and through the orchard, beyond the barns and granaries. CHAPTER XI Past the orchard, gliding swiftly, stooping forward as they went under the snow-laden boughs, they ran like frightened deer along by the barns and into the murky snow-plain, into the starless night, into the unfathomable stillness of the frozen waste. So, speeding on, swallowed up by the shadows, they presently forgot all the rest of the world. Each, with arm round the other’s waist, seized in a tight grasp, ran along with rapid steps, bending down, hip to hip—rejoicing, yet with fear, silent, yet with hearts full of song—athwart the bluish livid obscurity which enveloped them. “Yagna?” “Dearest?” “Are you really here?” “Can you doubt it?” They said no more, and were at times forced to stop and take breath. Unable to speak for the throbbing of their hearts, and forced besides to suppress their feelings, which else would have burst out in a wild cry, they only glanced at one another; their eyes darted still but ardent lightnings, and lips flew to lips in an impetuous rush, and with such hungry ravenous craving that they both reeled in ecstasy, panted for breath, feeling the earth crumble beneath their feet, as it were, while they fell into a fiery abyss—and, looking at one another with eyes blinded by those flames, saw nothing more!—And again they would dash forward—whither, they could not tell: only longing to be farther, farther away—plunged in the murkiest possible shadows, in the thickest intricacy of gloom. One more field passed—and yet another! Farther and deeper still—till nothing more was seen—till they could forget the whole world, and their own existence, and enter the realm of Fairyland, lost as in some strange dream, like to the marvellous waking vision which they had had but now, in Klemba’s hut!—And, indeed, they still felt the influence, luminous in its vagueness, of those mystic legends they had heard breathed low; they still were attuned to the diapason of wonders and of miracles; and those same fantastic myths were pouring a shower of unearthly blossoms into their souls: entrancement, awe, intense stupefaction, intoxicating bliss, unappeasable desire!