She had told him all her doings at the farm: he had listened with not a word of praise, but more than one of sharp censure. Then he had asked about all the village—and forgotten his own little ones! She had come out to him with what a faithful loving heart, with what intense yearning for his caresses! Was she not his own wife, the mother of his children? And yet he had not fondled her, nor kissed her, nor even inquired after her health. He had behaved like a stranger, and looked on her as one. At last, when she could speak no longer for the pain that strangled her, and her tears flowed forth, he had shouted: “Have you come all this way to whine and blubber at me?”—O God! the anguish of that moment!... And that was her reward for all the hard work she had done for him, all that toil so far beyond her strength, all her bitterness of woe!—Nothing; not one word of endearment, of comfort even! “O Christ! look down on me in Thy mercy, for I can bear no more!” she moaned, her face pressed hard down upon the pillow, not to wake the children, as she lay there, weeping, sorrowing, full of deep humiliation and the sense of cruel wrong. Neither in his presence, nor before anyone else afterwards, had she been able to pour forth her soul: only now did she at last give vent to the despair of her heart, and to those tears, more bitter than any bitterness on earth. * * * * * The next morning—Easter Monday—the weather was still more beautiful, the country-side more abundantly bathed in dew, in azure mist-wreaths, in sunshine and in joy. The birds’ songs were more sonorous; the warm gales, rushing through the trees, made them murmur, as it were, a quiet prayer. The folk rose earlier, too, that day, opening doors and windows wide, and going outside to gaze upon God’s world—on the verdurous orchards; on the vast landscape, garlanded with spring greenery, sparkling all over with diamonds, bathed in the light of the sun; on the autumn-ploughed fields, with young tawny blades waving in the wind, and rippling up to the cabins like sheets of water teased by the zephyrs. The boys ran about with squirts, drenching each other to the cry of _Smigus!_—or else, hiding behind the trees round the pond, they would deluge with water, not only the passers-by, but anyone who peeped out of doors; so that many a cabin-wall dripped with wet, and puddles glistened all around them.