Yagna, indeed, cared as much for his love as for last year’s snow. Just now she was moody, and out of patience with his transports of tenderness. Everything harried her, and she went about, angry and cold as a February wind, throwing work on her mother, or on Yuzka, and spurring her husband himself to exertions by some sharp word: she herself went to the other lodgings, she said, to see about the stove, and to the stable to tend the colt; but, in reality, to be alone and think of Antek. For Yanek had reminded her of him, and now Antek was as present to her mind’s eye as if he were there before her in the flesh. During hard upon three months she had seen nothing of him—except that once, when she was driving out along the Poplar-road. Yes, time had flowed by like a river: the wedding, the home-coming, her various occupations and the cares of her household duties, had left her no time to think of him. Out of sight, out of mind; and her acquaintances had avoided all mention of his name. And now, she knew not why, he had surged up suddenly before her with so sad and reproachful a look that her very soul within her was shaken and distressed.—“I have done no harm to you,” she said within herself; “why, then, are you haunting me thus, like a spectre, like a ghost?” And she attempted to wrestle with her memories of the past. She marvelled why his figure alone came back to her so—not Matthew’s, not Staho Ploshka’s, not any of the others—only his! Had he given her a love-charm that was now putting her beside herself, and tormenting her with the pangs that she felt? “What is he doing now, poor fellow? what is he thinking of?... And there is no means of having speech with him, none!—Certainly, it is a grievous sin.—Dear Jesus! It is a thing forbidden; so the priest told me in confession.—Oh, but if I could only speak to him once more—speak even in presence of a third person!—No, no: never, never, never!... I am Boryna’s until death!” “Yagna!” her mother called; “do come: we have to take the loaves out.” She ran back to the house, hurrying and bustling, and seeking to forget. But in vain: everywhere she saw his eyes, and those black overshadowing brows of his—and those red, red lips ... how ravenously eager, and how sweet! She set to work with feverish activity, putting the place in order; and in the evening she went to the byre, a place she scarcely ever visited. But all would not do. He was always there—there before her.—A great craving arose within her, tearing her heart to shreds; and her soul was so sorely tempest-tossed that she at last came to Yuzka, sedulously at work making “globes,” and, sitting down upon the chest by her side, burst into a passion of tears.