THE PEASANTS SUMMER THE PEASANTS A TALE OF OUR OWN TIMES IN FOUR VOLUMES AUTUMN WINTER SPRING SUMMER THE PEASANTS SUMMER FROM THE POLISH OF LADISLAS REYMONT [Illustration: Publisher’s Logo] ALFRED · A · KNOPF NEW YORK MCMXXV PUBLISHED, JUNE, 1925 SECOND PRINTING, JUNE, 1925 THIRD PRINTING, SEPTEMBER, 1925 FOURTH PRINTING, DECEMBER, 1925 MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA PUBLISHER’S NOTE _The Peasants_ has been translated from the original Polish by Michael H. Dziewicki, Reader of English Literature at the University of Cracow. I wish to make special acknowledgment to Dr. A. M. Nawench of Columbia University for his invaluable assistance in seeing the work through the press. A. A. K. THE PEASANTS SUMMER CHAPTER I Thus did Matthias Boryna die. With dreadful yelps and howls, and leaps against the door to be let in, Lapa awoke the sleepers in the cabin, who were enjoying their Sunday rest; and then he pulled them by their clothes, and ran out a little, looking back again to see if they followed him, till Hanka took notice. “Go, Yuzka, and see what that dog would have us do.” She ran out after him in good spirits, skipping along the road. He led her to her father’s body. On beholding it, she uttered such awful shrieks that they all came out at once, and found him cold, rigid, lying on his face just as when he had passed away, his arms stretched out crosswise in a last fervent prayer. Still attempting to revive him, they bore the body to the hut. All their endeavours were fruitless: what lay before them was a corpse, and nothing more. A bitter lamentation rose up: Hanka rent the air with cries; Yuzka cried not less wildly, and dashed her head against the wall; Vitek and the little ones wailed aloud, and Lapa howled and barked outside. Pete alone, who had been coming and going about the yard, glanced at the sun, and went back to his bed in the stable.