VIII
When old Ivar climbed down from his loft at four o'clock the nextmorning, he came upon Emil's mare, jaded and lather-stained, herbridle broken, chewing the scattered tufts of hay outside the stabledoor. The old man was thrown into a fright at once. He put themare in her stall, threw her a measure of oats, and then set outas fast as his bow-legs could carry him on the path to the nearestneighbor.
"Something is wrong with that boy. Some misfortune has come uponus. He would never have used her so, in his right senses. It isnot his way to abuse his mare," the old man kept muttering, as hescuttled through the short, wet pasture grass on his bare feet.
While Ivar was hurrying across the fields, the first long rays ofthe sun were reaching down between the orchard boughs to those twodew-drenched figures. The story of what had happened was writtenplainly on the orchard grass, and on the white mulberries that hadfallen in the night and were covered with dark stain. For Emil thechapter had been short. He was shot in the heart, and had rolledover on his back and died. His face was turned up to the sky andhis brows were drawn in a frown, as if he had realized that somethinghad befallen him. But for Marie Shabata it had not been so easy.One ball had torn through her right lung, another had shatteredthe carotid artery. She must have started up and gone toward thehedge, leaving a trail of blood. There she had fallen and bled.From that spot there was another trail, heavier than the first,where she must have dragged herself back to Emil's body. Oncethere, she seemed not to have struggled any more. She had liftedher head to her lover's breast, taken his hand in both her own,and bled quietly to death. She was lying on her right side in aneasy and natural position, her cheek on Emil's shoulder. On herface there was a look of ineffable content. Her lips were parteda little; her eyes were lightly closed, as if in a day-dream or alight slumber. After she lay down there, she seemed not to havemoved an eyelash. The hand she held was covered with dark stains,where she had kissed it.
But the stained, slippery grass, the darkened mulberries, told onlyhalf the story. Above Marie and Emil, two white butterflies fromFrank's alfalfa-field were fluttering in and out among the interlacingshadows; diving and soaring, now close together, now far apart;and in the long grass by the fence the last wild roses of the yearopened their pink hearts to die.
When Ivar reached the path by the hedge, he saw Shabata's riflelying in the way. He turned and peered through the branches,falling upon his knees as if his legs had been mowed from underhim. "Merciful God!" he groaned.
Alexandra, too, had risen early that morning, because of her anxietyabout Emil. She was in Emil's room upstairs when, from the window,she saw Ivar coming along the path that led from the Shabatas'.He was running like a spent man, tottering and lurching from sideto side. Ivar never drank, and Alexandra thought at once that oneof his spells had come upon him, and that he must be in a very badway indeed. She ran downstairs and hurried out to meet him, tohide his infirmity from the eyes of her household. The old manfell in the road at her feet and caught her hand, over which hebowed his shaggy head. "Mistress, mistress," he sobbed, "it hasfallen! Sin and death for the young ones! God have mercy uponus!"
PART V. Alexandra