“Oh, I know all about that. Lord, how I once ran after Yagna!—But when love comes, there is one thing to be done: marry, and it will at once pass away and vanish. If one cannot have the wife, why, then, the sweetheart: and immediately desire will be quenched, and love will die. I tell you the truth, and am not without experience,” he added, with pride. “And what,” Antek asked, sadly, “what if it shall not pass even then?” “That,” he returned scornfully, “is the lot of none but those that sigh in groves, and lurk round corners, and tremble to hear a petticoat rustle!” “What you have said is true,” Antek replied, in deep thought. “Come, man, drink to me: my throat is dry even to the bottom thereof.—The foul fiend take all women! Such a one, so weak you could fell her with a breath, will lead the strongest man as a calf led with a rope, rob him of strength and reason, and make him a laughing-stock to all! She-devils they are, every one of them, and the spawn of Satan, I tell you!—Now, drink to me!” “Here’s to you, brother!” “God bless you!—I say, a fig for all that devil’s spawn!... But ye know what they are, well enough.” They went on drinking and talking. Antek was somewhat flustered; and never having had one to whom he could tell his sorrow, he now felt a burning desire to make a clean breast of it. And though he refrained and controlled himself, he dropped a significant word or two here and there; these, though he gave no sign, Matthew noted well. And now the fun in the tavern was growing to its height. The band worked away with might and main. One dance followed another; drink was quaffed at every table; all raised their voices, often in dispute, so that the public room resounded with the hubbub; and the feet of the dancers drummed on the floor like the beating of flails. Klemba and his party now adjourned to the private room, and there too the noise was no trifle; but Soha continued dancing furiously with his Margaret, and at times went out with her into the open air, with their arms round each other’s waists. Bartek of the sawmill and his people, who still stood where they had been before, were now at their second bottle, with Voytek Kobus shouting insults into the ears of the Rzepki Folk. “Nobles in rags and tags, with naught but bundles and bags!” “With but a couple of kine, the common property of the whole village!” another screamed. “Long lousy locks warrant well-born wights!” “See them, the Jews’ hirelings!” “Let them be leashed with the manor hounds! Both scent a good thing from afar!” “What they scented, they now have got!” “They come to snatch away the work that is our due!” “The good-for-nothing vagabonds! They come because the Jews would hire them no more.”