In the audience there was presently a noise of weeping and sighing, the holy Name of Jesus was invoked, and even groans were heard. Meanwhile the priest spoke ever louder and with greater sternness; he seemed to them to have waxed somehow taller; lightnings shot from his eyes, and he lifted up his hands, and his words fell like stones hurled from them, and, like red-hot irons, they burnt into the hearts. He spoke of their wickedness and manifold transgressions; of the hardened sinners who lived amongst them; of their forgetfulness of God’s commandments, their eternal quarrels and fights and drunken bouts. He exhorted them with great zeal, making them tremble in themselves, so that all hearts were melted with sorrow; tears fell like dew, and there was a low ripple of weeping, and sighs of contrition arose.—Then the priest suddenly bent forward towards Antek, and with a mighty voice cried out against unnatural sons, who burned down the homes of their own fathers; and against seducers and all such men of iniquity, whom (he said) neither the everlasting fires nor the judgments of men would fail to punish. All the congregation were struck with awe and held their breath. Every eye was cast upon Antek like a fiery dart. He, white as a sheet, and scarcely able to breathe, stood stiffly upright, the words smiting him as if the church were falling about his ears. He looked round, as though to find help; but there was now an empty space round him, lined only by menacing or terrified faces. The folk shrank from him, as from one stricken with the plague.—And now the priest cried aloud, calling him to repentance, beseeching, imploring, adjuring him. Finally, turning again to the people, he exhorted them with outstretched arms to beware of a man so infamous, to protect themselves against him, to refuse him fire, water, food—aye, and not to let him so much as darken their doors. “For such a one would taint you all; ye would all grow foul at his touch; and, should he not mend his ways, atone for his misdeeds and do penance, then ought ye to pluck him out as ye weed stinging nettles, and cast him forth to his perdition!” At those words, Antek suddenly turned round; the people fell away from him right and left, and he passed out by the lane thus made, while the priest’s voice followed, smiting him as with a scourge that drew blood at each stroke. A wild cry of despair echoed at that moment through the church; but Antek did not hear it. He walked out as fast as he could, fearing lest he should fall dead with agony—fearing those eyes that glowed, fearing that awful voice. He went out into the highway and on to the poplar road, leading to the woods. From time to time, he paused affrighted: he still could hear that voice, which rang in his ears like a knell.