Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 162.djvu/119

Rh Filip's hut was conspicuous for neatness, and stood out from the other cottages like a new penny among a handful of old coppers. Its walls were only of mud, like the walls of other huts; but they were dazzlingly white: the wooden paling was carefully planned so as to keep out truant swine or fowls from making havoc in the well-kept garden, where cabbages and carrots, radishes and lettuce, flourished alongside of brilliant poppy flowers, lilac, red, and pink, now rapidly beginning to let fall their petals. Three or four beehives, constructed out of hollowed-out tree-trunks, stood against the cottage wall at one end. As Magda entered the wicket gate of the little garden, she became aware of a disagreeable smell which filled the air, and made her feel sick and faint. Filip perceived it too, and hastened his steps.

"It is that cursed paint which I left boiling on the fire. I suppose it has run over. I forgot that there was no one left to look after it now!"

This was the color which Filip was in the habit of preparing for painting over the coffins — a dull, unvarnished black, prepared chiefly out of ox-gall and tar, after a cheap and simple recipe of his own. Magda understood now why this smell had made her feel so faint.

They put down the cases in the garden outside, and entered the hut.

The pot had indeed boiled over, and discharged its contents in a sable stream all over the stamped-clay floor of the kitchen. The bed where poor Julka had breathed her last was empty.

"They have taken her away already! My poor Julka!" said Filip, At this moment Kuba, the boy-twin, came running in from the garden, roaring lustily: a bee had stung him on the arm. His sister meanwhile, squatting on the floor near the running stream of black paint, was seeking to analyze its nature and consistency by dipping, each of her ten fingers in succession into the sable liquid, and after tasting and finding it unpalatable, therewith describing bold lines and figures all over her dirty, rosy face and dimpled bare legs.

Everything inside the cottage bore already the mark of neglect and desolation. It was little more than three hours since the hard-working wife and mother had breathed her last, and already her absence was so tangibly, so cruelly felt. The milk-pots of black earthenware, which should every morning be freshly rinsed out, and put to dry in the sun, were standing about unwashed on the shelves, the milk within them already turning sour, and attracting numerous swarms of flies. A dish of cold potatoes was standing in the window.

"My poor Julka!" cried Filip again, and he sank down on his knees near the empty bed; great sobs shook his breast, and heavy tears rolled down his hard face.

Magda stood by, not daring to speak or make any effort at consolation. This grief was not of the kind which invites or even admits of sympathy.

Little Kasza, startled at the sound, raised her dark, curly head, and stayed thus immovable, arrested in the midst of her painting operations, one grimy hand poised in the air, while the thick black liquid dropped slowly back on to the kitchen floor.

Even the boy Kuba hushed his roaring for a moment to gaze at the unwonted spectacle of his father crying. It must have been a very big bee indeed, he dimly thought, which had stung his tata, to make him cry so loud.

After Filip had given vent to his grief for some minutes, he raised his head and stood up again: his face still quivered with the inward emotion, but not for long.

"For eleven years," he said, speaking more to himself than to Magda — "for eleven years we have lived happily together, I and my Julka; never a hard word passed between us; never for a moment had I cause to regret the day which made her my wife. She was worth her weight in gold. And to think," he continued, looking round the untidy kitchen — "to think that last night she was still here!" then as his eye rested on a heap of potato-peelings near the threshold — "Last night she cooked our supper, she peeled those potatoes; who will peel the potatoes this evening?" and again there was a break in his voice.

"I will," said Magda quickly, finding her speech at last. "If the gracious pani can spare me for an hour this evening, I shall come down and make your supper."

Filip's plaintive allusion to the potatoes had been rather an expression of grief for the dead Julka than a direct interrogation as to how he was to get his supper that evening. At least, if any such prosaic feeling as anxiety about his food were mixed up with his sorrow for his lost wife, he was certainly unconscious of it; yet when Magda said, "I shall cook your potatoes this evening," he felt grateful to her, and, unknown to himself, somewhat relieved in his mind.