Page:The International - Volume 3.djvu/582

 me fifty florins, and as soon as I can, I’ll repay it with interest.”

Svejnoha was as white as the field that stretched out behind his cottage. So the village was in need of a usurer. In Loukov there were none, although their need was felt. And his son-in-law thought him capable of that! That was the only way they needed their father! That was the “favor,” beginning with pawning and ending with usury. Svejnoha turned to the window, as if he longed for fresh air. He felt hurt, crushed, dishonored.

Hukac rubbed his elbow against the table. “Well, what do you say?” he finally asked.

“That you’d better get out of here, as soon as ever you can! You miserable wretch, you evil tongue!” cried Svejnoha dashing the casket at the son-in-law’s feet, as if it were not worth a groat. Hukac smiled scornfully.

“It costs nothing to call names; all model fathers-in-law know how to do that! Day after to-morrow our house will be sold at auction, but what does our father care? His home will be safe. Good-day, sir; Nanka will hardly believe her ears!” and Hukac picked the casket up from the floor, and disappeared.

Half an hour passed. Out of doors darkness had fallen, although nature’s white cloak still gleamed through the gloom like a path into a more propitious future. Svejnoha looked listlessly out of the window. The sky was clear; just the night for St. Nicholas’s visit. Over the beautiful white plain silence reigned like an eternal, unbroken dream.

Svejnoha waited. Surely Nanka would come to him, she must come; she certainly knew nothing of her husband’s shameful act, and even if she did she would seek refuge from her troubles upon her father’s breast, where she well knew a welcome awaited her. She must come to excuse herself, to explain things, to tell him all that she had foolishly concealed from him so long. Was he not her father, who had raised her? She must come! The stalwart man trembled with expectation like a child.

“Upon the horizon appeared the first star, bright, dignified and proud, as if she knew she was standing guard by the tent of the Almighty.

Nanka did not come. The dark path in the snow, leading from her cottage to that of Svejnoha, remained empty; empty and sad, so strangely sad that Svejnoha’s eyes gradually filled with tears. Still she did not come. Was it possible? Did she not know that it was her duty to come?

His hot breath covered the pane of the narrow window with a gray mist. He wiped it off with his hand and looked again. All was still, desolate, and mysterious. Nanka did not come.

A feeble light shone from one window in Hukac’s cottage. The heavens were full of stars; the air was hushed into a solemn silence; the night watch, passing through the village like a shadow, blew the hour of eight. And still Svejnoha waited. His mind was a blank now, and his breath came in gasps. Still Nanka did not come.

Ten o’clock came. It was night; holy, tender, motherly night; a night that seems to beckon us to throw ourselves into her arms and listen to the beating of her heart; a beautiful, sublime, godly night, full of gifts and dreams; the night of St. Nicholas.

But the children of Loukov waited in vain for St. Nicholas that night; he never came. Svejnoha sat up till dawn; then he lay down and slept heavily. He knew then that Nanka would not come.

From that time St. Nicholas had not made his rounds in Loukov, and only here and there filled a stocking that was hung at the window.

Hukac’s farm was sold, and he and Nanka earned a bare living by doing odd jobs of work about the village. In course of time the crows came to their window, bringing a lusty boy, who did nothing all day but eat, and soon he was as big and fat as any mother could wish. Svejnoha seemed utterly ignorant of this. Since he first realized that he had lost his daughter