Christian sat without moving. A bitterness rose in his throat, for there came to him with unexpected power a sense of the essential reality of the spiritual pain that was being uttered here.
The convulsion ceased as suddenly as it had begun. Franz Lothar arose, walked up and down with dragging footsteps, and said: “You shall hear how it was.” Thereupon he sat down and told them.
In the village of Orasje a dance had been planned. No hall was available, and so the large, well-boarded barn of a peasant was prepared. Numerous lamps were hung up, and the wooden walls adorned with flowers and foliage. According to a local custom, the magnates on all the neighbouring estates and their families received invitations to attend the festivity. A mounted messenger delivered these solemnly by word of mouth.
Franz Lothar begged his brother to take him to the peasants’ ball. He had long heard stories in praise of the picturesqueness of these feasts: the snow-white garments of the men, the strong and varied colours of the women’s, the national dances, the primitive music. There was a promise in all these, both of pleasure and of a knowledge of new folk-ways.
They intended to drive over at a late hour when the dancing had already begun. Two young countesses and the latters’ brother, all members of their circle, planned to join them. But in the end the others went first, for the young ladies did not want to miss any of the dancing. Franz Lothar had long and cordially admired the Countess Irene, who was the older of the two.
Several days before the ball, however, a quarrel had broken out between the youths and maidens of Orasje. On the way to church, a lad, whom a seventeen-year-old beauty had given too rude an evidence of her dislike, had put a live mouse on her naked shoulder. The girl ran crying to her companions, and they sent an envoy to the youths, demanding that the guilty one apologize.
The demand was refused. There was laughter and teasing. But they insisted on this punishment, although they were repeated their demand in a more drastic form. When it was refused a second time they determined to invite to their ball the young men of Gradiste, between whom and those of Orasje there was a feud of many years’ standing. They knew the insult they were inflicting on the youths of their own village. But they insisted on this punishment, although they were warned even by their fathers and mothers, and by loud and silent threats which should have inspired them with fear.
The youths of Gradiste were, of course, loudly triumphant over their cheap victory. On the evening of the dance they appeared without exception, handsomely dressed, and accompanied by their own village band. Of the youths of Orasje not one was to be seen. In the twilight they passed in ghostly procession through the streets of the village, and were then seen no more.
The elders and the married folk of Orasje sat at tables in their yards and gardens, and chatted. But they were not as care-free as on other festive evenings, for they felt the vengeful mood of their sons, and feared it. They drank their wine and listened to the music. In the barn over three hundred young people were assembled. The air was sultry, and the dancers were bathed in sweat. Suddenly, while they were dancing a Czarda, the two great doors of the barn were simultaneously slammed to from without. Those who saw it and heard it ceased dancing. And now a powerful and disturbing noise broke in upon the loud and jubilant sound of the instruments. It was the sound of hammers, and a sharp and terror-shaken voice called out: “They are nailing up the doors.”
The music stopped. In a moment the atmosphere had become suffocating. As though turned to stone, they all stared at the doors. Their blood seemed to congeal under the terrible blows of the hammers. Loud and mingled voices came to them from without. The older people there raised their protesting voices. The voices grew loud and wild, and then rose to desperate shrieks and howls. Then it began to crackle and hiss. The blows of the hammers had shaken down a lamp. The petroleum had caught on fire, and the dry boarding of the floor flared like tinder that could no longer be extinguished.