What was taking place in the woman's soul, as she passed the old church a second time in returning to Barania-Glova, I will not undertake to describe. Ah! if Panna Yadviga had found herself in a similar position, I might write a sensational novel, in which I would undertake to convince the most obdurate positivist that there are ideal beings in this world yet. But in Panna Yadviga every impression would have risen to self-consciousness; despairing struggles of the soul would have expressed themselves in no less despairing, and therefore very dramatic, words and thoughts. That vicious circle, that deep and painful feeling of helplessness, weakness, and overpowering opposition, that rôle of a leaf in a storm, the dull knowledge that there is no salvation from any side, neither from earth, nor from heaven, would surely have inspired Panna Yadviga with a monologue no less intense than the terror of her position; this I should need merely to write down to make a reputation.
But Repa's wife? Peasants when they suffer merely suffer, nothing more. This woman in the strong hand of misfortune was simply like a bird tormented by a vicious child. She went forward; the wind drove her; sweat flowed from her forehead; and that was the whole history. At times when the child, who was sick, opened his mouth and began to pant, as if ready to die, she called to him, "Yasek, O Yasek, my heart!" And she pressed her lips of a mother to the heated forehead of the little one. She passed the pre-Reformation church, and went on into the field, till she stopped on a sudden; a drunken peasant was coming toward her.
Clouds were rolling on in the sky, denser and denser, and in them something like a storm was preparing; from time to time there was a flash of lightning; but the peasant did not inquire, he let his coat-skirt to the wind, pulled his cap over his ears, and reeled along, now to the right, now to the left, singing,—
"To the garden went Dodo,
He went to buy parsnips,
But I will give Dodo
A club on the leg,
Dodo will run then.
Uu, du!"
Seeing Repa's wife, he stopped, opened his eyes, and cried,—