The appeal awoke the sleeping women, and the men who were stretched with the horses upon the lawn came running. They guessed at a glance what had happened; they knelt down and began loudly to recite the litany.
The breeze ceased, even the leaves upon the pear-tree did not rustle. Only the voices reciting the litany sounded throughout that profound silence.
Danusia opened her eyes once more at the very end of the litany, as though she wished to look upon Zbyszko and upon the sunlit world for the last time. Then she lapsed into an everlasting sleep.
* * * * *
The women closed her eyelids; then they went to the meadow to gather flowers. The men followed them in file. Thus they walked in the sunshine among the luxuriant grass and had the appearance of field spirits bowing now and then, and weeping, for their hearts were filled with pity and sorrow. Zbyszko was kneeling in the shade beside the litter, with his head upon Danusia's knees, speechless and motionless, as if he too were dead. But the gatherers kept on plucking here and there, marigolds, buttercups, bellflowers and plenty of red and white sweet-smelling little blossoms. They also found in the small moist hollows in the meadow, lilies of the valley, and upon the margin near the fallow ground, they got St. John's wort until they had gathered their arms full. Then they sadly surrounded the litter and began to adorn it, until they had covered the dead with flowers and herbs; they only left the face uncovered, which in the midst of the bellflowers and lilies looked white, peaceful, calm, as in eternal sleep, serene, and quite angelic.
The distance to Spychow was less than three miles. Then, when they had shed copious tears of sorrow and pain, they carried the litter toward the forest where Jurand's domains began.
The men led the horses in front of the retinue. Zbyszko himself carried the litter upon his head, and the women loaded with the surplus of the bunches of flowers and herbs, sang hymns. They moved very slowly along the herb-covered meadows and the grey fallow fields and had the appearance of a funeral procession. Not a cloudlet marred the blue clear sky, and the region warmed itself in the golden rays of the sun.
The further adventures of Zbyszko will be found in a subsequent volume.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: The Benedictine Abbey at Tyniec was in Poland as important and rich, relatively, as the Abbey of Saint-Germain des Près in France. In those times the order organized by Saint Benoit (Benedictus) was the most important factor in the civilization and material prosperity of the country. The older contained 17,000 abbeys. From it came 24 Popes; 200 Cardinals; 1,600 Archbishops; 4,000 Bishops; 15,000 Writers; 1,500 Saints; 5,000 Beatified; 43 Emperors, and 44 Kings. These figures are material facts showing the importance of the order. About its influence on art, literature and culture one could write a volume.]