“I was asleep at Mother’s: Vitek came to call me but now.—Is he dead truly and indeed?” she asked suddenly, approaching him. “Surely ’tis for a coffin, not for a wedding, that I am attiring him.” She could not make it out, and staggered up against the wall; she fancied herself in a deep sleep, the prey of some nightmare. Several times she quitted the room, but always returned: to keep her eyes away from the body was impossible. Now and again she would start up to go out, and yet stayed on; at times she went out as far as the stile, and looked far across the fields with unseeing gaze; or she would seat herself outside, but close to the room and to Yuzka, who was weeping, tearing her hair, and for ever crying: “Oh my father, my lost father! lost!” There was great wailing and sobbing, not only in, but also around, the cabin. Of the mourners, Yagna alone, though quaking in every limb, and stirred to the inmost depths of her being, could not shed one tear, could not utter one cry. She only walked to and fro with eyes gloomily bright, with an expression of stern awe. It was a good thing that Hanka presently recovered herself and, though tearful yet, was able to see to everything, and felt quite calm on the arrival of the blacksmith and his wife. Magda wept; the smith asked for particulars, which Hanka gave him. “’Tis well that the Lord Jesus has sent him so easy a death!” “Poor man! Running out afield to flee Dame Crossbones’ embrace!” “Yestereve I went to look at him; he was as quiet as usual.” “And did he not speak? Not a word?” the smith asked, wiping tearless eyes. “Not a word. So I pulled the down covering over him, gave him to drink, and came away.” “What? and so he got up alone! Peradventure, then, he might not have died, had any been there to watch over him,” said Magda, between her sobs. “Yagna was sleeping at her mother’s. She always does so, now the old dame is so very ill.” “It was to be!—And it has been!” said the blacksmith. “These three months and over he has been a-dying. Whoso cannot be healed, better let him die quickly. Let us thank the Lord God that he suffers no longer.” “Aye, and well ye know how much the physicians and medicines cost us in the first days ... and all to no purpose.” “Ah!” Magda lamented; “how good a farmer he was! how able a man!” “What grieves me is that Antek should not find him alive, when he comes back.” “He is no child, nor likely to weep on that account.—Rather bethink yourself of the funeral.” “True, true.—Oh, what a pity that Roch is away just now!” “We can do without him. Be not troubled: I will see to all,” the smith replied.