The Pobratim Part 32

Some women in her state--she had heard--never got over the consequences of a blow; perhaps the kick might produce mortification, and then in a few days she would die. Yes, she felt as if she had received an inward incurable bruise. Well, after all, it was but right; she had deceived her husband; he had revenged himself. Now they were quits.

Still tears started to her eyes, and sobs rose to her throat.

Well, after all, she thought, what did it matter if she died? This wretched life would be over.

Only----

Only what?

Yes, she avowed it to herself; she longed to see Uros' fond face once more before dying. With her hand locked in his, her eyes gazing upon him, death would have almost been bliss.

With a repressed and painful yearning, her lover's name at last escaped her lips.

Radonic, who had been snoring as if he was about to suffocate, uttered a kind of snorting sound, then he started and woke with a fearful curse on his lips.

Milena, shuddering, uttered a half-stifled cry.

"What is the matter?" she asked.

"Nothing, I was only dreaming. I thought that a young sailor, whom I once crippled with a kick, had gripped me by my neck, and was choking me."

"It must have been the _morina_" (the nightmare) "sitting on you,"

and Milena crossed herself.

"How is it you are not in bed?" he asked, scowling.

She did not speak for an instant.

He started up to look at her.

"Perhaps that villain is sneaking about the house, and you wish to warn him?"

"Your jealousy really drives you mad."

"Well, then, will you speak? Why are you not yet in bed?"

"I--I don't feel exactly well."

"Why, what's the matter?"

"The kick you gave me," she retorted, falteringly.

"Why, I hardly touched you! well, you are getting mighty delicate; you ought to have had the kick I gave that sailor lad, then you would have known the strength of my foot!"

"Yes, but----" She checked herself, and then added: "Women are delicate."

"Oh! so you are going to be a grand lady, and be delicate, are you?

Who ever heard of a Montenegrin being delicate?" Then he added: "If you don't feel well, go to bed and try to sleep."

Thereupon he turned on the other side, and began to snore very soon afterwards.

Milena began to think of what had been and might have been.

She had sinned, foolishly, thoughtlessly; but since that fatal night she had never known a single moment's happiness. As time pa.s.sed, the heinousness of her sin rose up before her, more dreadful, more appalling.

Still, was it the sin itself, or its dire consequences, that rendered her so moody, so timorous?

She never asked herself such a question; she only knew that she now started, like a guilty thing, at the slightest noise, and she s.h.i.+vered if anybody spoke to her abruptly. At times she fancied everybody could read her guilt in her face.

She had been more than once tempted, of late, to tell her husband that, in some months, she would be a mother. Still, the words had ever stuck in her throat; she could never nerve herself enough to speak.

Though he might probably never have got to know the real truth, could she tell him that _he_ was the father of her child, or, at least, allow him to think so? No, she could never do that, for it was impossible to act that lie the whole of her life. Could she see her husband, returning from a long voyage, take in his arms and fondle the child that was not his, the child that he would strangle if he knew whose it was?

Although an infant is the real, nay, the only bond of married life, still, the child of sin is a spectre ever rising 'twixt husband and wife, estranging them from one another for ever.

Then she had better confess her guilt at once. And bring about three deaths? Aye, surely; Radonic was not a man to forgive. He had crippled a sailor lad for some trifle.

She must keep her secret a little longer--and then?

Thereupon she fell on her knees before the silver-clad image of the Virgin.

"Oh, holy Virgin, help me! for to whom can I turn for help but to thee? Help me, and I promise thee never to sin again, either by word or action, all my life." And she kissed the icon devoutly. "Oh, holy Virgin, help me! for thou canst do any miracle thou likest. Show mercy upon me, and draw me from this sorrowful plight. I shall work hard, and get thee, with my earnings, as huge a taper as money can buy.

"And thou, great St. George, who didst kill a dragon to save a maid, save me from Vranic; and every year, upon thy holy day, I shall burn incense and light a candle before thy picture, if thou wilt listen to my prayer."

After that, feeling somewhat comforted, she went to bed, and at last managed to fall asleep, notwithstanding the pain she felt in her side.

On the morrow Radonic went away as usual, and Milena was left alone.

The day pa.s.sed away slowly, gloomily. The weather was dull, sultry, oppressive. The sirocco that blew every now and then in fitful, silent gusts, was damp, stifling, heavy. A storm was brewing in the air overhead, and all around there was a lull, as if anxious Nature were waiting in sullen expectation for its outburst. The earth was fretful; the sky as peevish as a human being crossed in his designs.

The hollow, rumbling noise in the clouds seemed the low grumbling of contained anger.

Everybody was more or less unsettled by the weather--Milena more than anyone else. As the day pa.s.sed her nervousness increased, and solitude grew to be oppressive.

Her husband, before leaving the house, had told her to go and spend the evening at her kinswoman's, as a bee was to be held there; the women spun, and the men prepared stakes for the vines. Bellacic was fond of company, and he liked to have people with merry faces around him, helping him to while away the long evening hours; nor did he grudge a helping hand to others, whenever his neighbours had any kind of work for him to do.

"I'll come there and fetch you as soon as I've settled my business with Vranic," said Radonic, going off.

Milena, understanding that her husband wanted her out of the way, decided upon remaining at home, and, possibly, preventing further mischief.

The day had been dark and gloomy from morning; the clouds heaped overhead grew always blacker, and kept coming down lower and ever lower. Early in the afternoon the light began to wane. Her uneasiness increased at approaching night. With the gloaming her thoughts grew dreary and dismal. She was afraid to remain at home; she was loth to go away. Unable to work any longer, she went outside to sit on the doorstep and spin. Now, at last, the rain began, and lurid flashes were seen through the several heaps and ma.s.ses of clouds.

The lightning showed to her excited imagination not only numberless witches, morine and goblins, chasing and racing after each other like withered leaves in a storm, but in that horrid landscape she perceived murderous battles, hurtling onslaughts, fearful frays and bloodshed, followed by s.p.a.ces that looked like fields of fire and gory hills of trodden snow. It was too dreadful to look at, so she turned round to go in. She would light the lamp and kindle the fire.

At a few steps from the threshold she heard, or, at least, she fancied she heard, someone whistle outside. She stopped to listen.

Perhaps it was only the shrill sound of the wind through the leafless bushes; for the wind has at times the knack of whistling like a human being.

She again advanced a step or two towards the hearth; and as she did so, she stumbled on something. She uttered a low, m.u.f.fled cry as she almost fell. On what had her foot caught? She bent down, and felt with her hand. It seemed like the corpse of a man stretched out at full length--a human creature wallowing in his own blood. A sickening sense of fear, a feeling of faintness, came over her. She hardly dared to move. Her teeth were chattering; all her limbs were trembling. Still, she managed to recover her self-possession, so as to grope and put her hand on the steel and flint. Still, such was her terror, that everything she touched a.s.sumed an uncouth, ungainly, weird shape. Having found the steel, she managed to strike a light.

That faint glimmer dispelled her terror, and she asked herself how she could have been so foolish as to take a coat lying on the floor for a murdered man.

The thing that puzzled her was how that coat came to be lying there on the floor. It was her husband's old _kabanica_, and it must have been left on some stool.