This was true, most true; he could hardly bear to live on thus, continually holding himself down with all his might, breaking his soul in as with an iron curb, and keeping it under the strictest control. But he felt himself giving way with sheer weariness of the struggle; ever more and more frequently there came over him the longing to throw everything up and yield to his fate—happy or miserable, it mattered little to him. He was disgusted with life, and devoured with sadness—infinite sadness, which, like a bird of prey, had sunk its talons deep into his mangled heart. To bear the yoke thus was irksome beyond words: he choked and strained in bonds, as a horse tethered in a paddock, or as a chained-up dog might do. He thought of himself as a fruit-tree, broken by the gales, condemned to die, withering slowly in the midst of a blossoming orchard full of lusty life. And Lipka—Lipka went on as usual. There were christenings, as at the Vahniks’; betrothals, as at the Klembas’ (though now they had no music, they took as much enjoyment as was allowed in Advent); then in some families there was a death, as at that other Bartek’s, whom his son-in-law had beaten so fearfully that he pined away and lay moaning until at last refreshed in Abraham’s bosom. And Yagustynka had once again brought another action against her children for breach of contract. Many another thing was going on besides, something new in nearly every hut, and folk had plenty of matter for gossip, and for laughter and for sorrow. And throughout the long winter evenings, the women gathered together and spun in many a cabin. And, Lord! how they all did laugh and chatter and wrangle, till the noise of their jollity was heard far out on the road! Everywhere there was no end of squabbling, of striking up friendships, of wooings, of trysts outside the homesteads; of turmoils and fightings and sweet converse: as in an ant-hill or in a beehive, so the folk swarmed and buzzed within their cabins. Yes, everyone lived as he pleased, as seemed best to him and was fitter both to himself and his neighbours, and according to the commandments of God. And he, Antek, stood alone, outside of them all, cut off from humanity; like a strange bird, hungry, yet afraid, that will perhaps flap its wings outside the lighted windows, and long to draw nearer to the corn-filled stacks—and yet does not: only wheels around, listens, feeds on its hunger, gulps down its thirst, and never will draw nigh! Unless—unless God should deign to work in him a change that might last for ever, and make him a new creature! Alas! of such a change he dreaded as yet even to think. One morning, only a few days before Christmas, he met the blacksmith; who, though Antek would have passed him by, blocked the way and, stretching out his hand, said to him kindly and in a slightly sad tone: “And I expected you’d come to me as to a brother. I could have talked with you and aided you, little as we have at home.”