“She flees me as the plague!... This fellow’s new sieve for her peg.—Fortunately, she will lose her trouble with Yanek.—Ah!” he said, now more and more wrought up; “some women are of such nature that they will run after any man who only whistles to them.” But, fast as he went, his burning memories went with him. He saw no one, though several men passed by; and he only calmed down at the village, on perceiving Yanek’s mother, sitting by a ditch, her youngest son rolling in the sand beside her, and a flock of geese grazing between the poplar-trees. “You have come pretty far with your geese, Madam,” he said, stopping to wipe his face. “I went out to meet Yanek; he must be here at any minute.” “I just saw him at the skirt of the forest.” “Ah, is he, then, so near?” she ejaculated, starting up and chiding her geese for getting into the rye near the roadside, where they were doing considerable damage. “His britzka was standing near the crucifix; he was in talk with some woman or other.” “Yes, he must have met an acquaintance and had a chat. Good kind-hearted boy! he cannot even pass by a strange dog without patting it.—And who was she?” “I could not be quite sure, but fancy she was Yagna.” He saw the old dame purse her lips at the name, and added, smiling significantly: “I could not tell, for they were slipping away into the thickets. On account of the heat, no doubt.” “Saints of the Lord! what has come to your mind? Yanek!—to mix with such a one!” “She’s as good as others!” he retorted, suddenly angry. “Better, it may be.” The organist’s wife bent over her knitting, and her fingers wagged more quickly. “What! Yanek, on the very verge of the priesthood, to have anything to do with such a woman!” And then she recalled certain tales she had heard about priests, and dug a knitting-needle into her hair in perplexity, and resolved to see into this and inquire.... But Antek had gone; and now there came a great cloud of dust upon the road; and two minutes later Yanek was embracing her with the tenderest affection, and crying out from his heart: “O my dear, my darling mother!” “Saints of the Lord!—Let go, you young giant, let go: you’re choking me!” But when he had let go, she fell herself to hugging and kissing, and gloating over him with eager eyes. “Poor little mite! How thin they have made you! How pale, poor son of mine! and how wretched-looking!” “One does not grow fat on broth of holy water!” he answered, laughing, and tossing his little brother up in the air, till he crowed with delight. “Fear nothing; we’ll stuff you and puff you out in no time,” she said, stroking his cheeks with affection. “Well, let us drive on, Mother dear, and we shall be sooner home.” “Ah, those geese! Lord, Lord! In the rye again!” He ran to drive them off, for they were plucking at the rye-stalks and devouring the grain at will. Then he placed his brother in the cart, and walked on himself along the middle of the road.