Meanwhile they had drawn near Vantory and the church, on a hill among linden-trees. Under the hill stood at number of peasant-wagons with ladder-like boxes, some brichkas and carriages. Pan Plavitski made the sign of the cross, and said, “This is our little church, which thou must remember. All the Plavitskis lie here, and I, too, shall be lying here soon. I never pray better than in this place.”
“There will be many people, I see,” said Pan Stanislav.
“Gantovski’s brichka, Zazimski’s coach, Yamish’s carriage, and a number of others are there. Thou must remember the Yamishes. She is an uncommon woman; he pretends to be a great agriculturist and a councillor, but he is an old dotard, who never did understand her.”
At that moment the bell began to sound in the church tower.
“They have seen us, and are ringing the bell,” said Plavitski; “Mass will begin this moment. I will take thee, after Mass, to the grave of my first wife; pray for her, since she was thy aunt. She was an honest woman; the Lord light her.”
Here Plavitski raised his finger again to rub his right eye. Pan Stanislav therefore asked, wishing to change the conversation,—
“But was not Pani Yamish once very beautiful? or is this the same one?”
Plavitski’s face gleamed suddenly. He thrust out for one moment the end of his tongue from his blackened little mustaches, and patting Pan Stanislav on the thigh, said,—
“She is worth a sin yet,—she is, she is.”
Meanwhile they drove in, and after walking around the church, entered the sacristy at the side; not wishing to push through the crowd, they sat on side seats near the altar. Plavitski occupied the collator’s place, in which were also the Yamishes. Yamish was a man very old in appearance, with an intelligent face, but weighed down; she was a woman well toward sixty, dressed almost like Panna Marynia,—that is, in a muslin robe and a straw hat. The bows, full of politeness, which Pan Plavitski made to her, and the kind smiles with which she returned them, showed that between those two reigned intimate relations founded on mutual adoration. After a while the lady, raising her glasses to her eyes, began to observe Pan Stanislav, not understanding apparently who could have come with Pan Plavitski. In the seat behind them one of the neighbors, taking advantage of the fact that Mass had not begun yet, was finishing some narrative about hunting, and repeated a number of times to another neighbor, “My dogs, well—” then both stopped their conversation, and began to speak to Plavitski and Pani Yamish so audibly that every word reached the ears of Pan Stanislav. The priest came out to the altar then.