“... as far from me as any star!—’Tis to Yanek she has an eye at present!...” Mastering his emotion, Yanek bent over the fence and gave ear, in spite of his growing excitement. “True, she goes out to him every night.... Kozlova surprised them in the wood together....” Here everything began to turn round, his eyes saw nothing and he almost fell swooning. Meanwhile, the sound of kisses and low laughter and whispering continued. “If you.... I’ll scald your head with boiling water!... Pete!... Pete!” He had heard enough. He rushed away, swift as the wind, tearing his soutane on the way, and reached home as red as a beetroot, perspiring profusely, and in a fever of excitement. Luckily, no one paid attention to him. His mother, sitting by the fire-place, was singing under her breath the evening hymn, “All our actions of this day, At Thy feet, O Lord, we lay,” and spinning the while; his sisters and Michael, who was polishing the church candlesticks, joined in. His father was in bed. He went to his room and began to say his hours. But, strive as he would to attend to the Latin words, his mind was always harking back to the whispers and kisses he had overheard. At last, dropping his head on the book, he unconsciously gave way to the thoughts which came over him like a burning blast. “So?... Are things so?” he mused, with growing horror, and a thrill that was nevertheless not unpleasant. “_Are things so!_” he suddenly repeated aloud; and to get rid of the abominable fancies that beset him, he put his breviary under his arm, and went to his mother, telling her, in a low subdued voice, that he was going to pray by Agata’s body. “Yes, go, dearest; I will come for you later!” she returned, with a glance very full of love. Klemba’s cabin was almost empty. Only Ambrose was there, mumbling out of a book, beside the deceased who lay covered with a sheet. At the head of the bed, the death-taper burned, stuck in a small jug. Fruit-laden apple-boughs peered in at the open window; and now and then a belated passer-by peered in too. In the passage, the dogs growled low. Yanek knelt down close to the light, and fell to his prayers with such intense fervour that he never knew when Ambrose got up and hobbled home. The Klembas had lain down to rest in the orchard.—The first cock had crowed before his mother, remembering, came to fetch him home. But no slumber came to his eyelids there. Each time he fell into a doze, Yagna’s form appeared to him with such lifelike reality that he started up in bed, rubbed his eyes, and looked around in horror—only to see that all the place was quiet, and to hear his father snoring sonorously.