VIII
When old Ivar climbed down from his loft
at four o'clock the next morning, he came upon
Emil's mare, jaded and lather-stained, her
bridle broken, chewing the scattered tufts of
hay outside the stable door. The old man was
thrown into a fright at once. He put the mare
in her stall, threw her a measure of oats, and
then set out as fast as his bow-legs could carry
him on the path to the nearest neighbor.
"Something is wrong with that boy. Some
misfortune has come upon us. He would never
have used her so, in his right senses. It is not
his way to abuse his mare," the old man kept
muttering, as he scuttled through the short,
wet pasture grass on his bare feet.
While Ivar was hurrying across the fields, the
first long rays of the sun were reaching down
between the orchard boughs to those two dew-
drenched figures. The story of what had hap-
pened was written plainly on the orchard grass,
and on the white mulberries that had fallen in
the night and were covered with dark stain.
For Emil the chapter had been short. He was
shot in the heart, and had rolled over on his
back and died. His face was turned up to the
sky and his brows were drawn in a frown, as
if he had realized that something had befallen
him. But for Marie Shabata it had not been so
easy. One ball had torn through her right lung,
another had shattered the carotid artery. She
must have started up and gone toward the
hedge, 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.
Once there, she seemed not to have struggled
any more. She had lifted her 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 an easy and natural position, her
cheek on Emil's shoulder. On her face there was
a look of ineffable content. Her lips were parted
a little; her eyes were lightly closed, as if in a
day-dream or a light slumber. After she lay
down there, she seemed not to have moved 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 only half the story. Above
Marie and Emil, two white butterflies from
Frank's alfalfa-field were fluttering in and out
among the interlacing shadows; diving and
soaring, now close together, now far apart; and
in the long grass by the fence the last wild roses
of the year opened their pink hearts to die.
When Ivar reached the path by the hedge, he
saw Shabata's rifle lying in the way. He turned
and peered through the branches, falling upon
his knees as if his legs had been mowed from
under him. "Merciful God!" he groaned;
Alexandra, too, had risen early that morning, because of her anxiety about 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 side to side. Ivar never drank, and Alexandra thought at once that one of his spells had come upon him, and that he must be in a very bad way indeed. She ran downstairs and hurried out to meet him, to hide his infirmity from the eyes of her household. The old man fell in the road at her feet and caught her hand, over which he bowed his shaggy head. "Mistress, mistress," he sobbed, "it has fallen! Sin and death for the young ones! God have mercy upon us!"
