In bad company

III

Shortly before the period we have been describing, there had been a change of possessor* on a small neighbouring estate.
[ Under a rental system widely in use in the South-West Territory, the tenant (or "possessor", as he is called) is somewhat in the position of an estate manager. He pays the owner a definite sum; and what he himself will make on the estate, once that sum is paid, depends upon his own ability and enterprise.]
In place of the former troublesome occupant, with whom even quiet Pan Popelsky had been drawn into litigation over a field some cattle had trampled, the estate was now held by an elderly couple—one Pan Yaskulsky and his wife. These two, though their ages, put together, totalled over a hundred, had been married only a few years. Pan Yaskulsky had had a long, hard struggle, working as a steward on other people's property, before he could get together enough money to rent an estate for his own use; and Panna Agnieszka, all those long years, had lived with the Countess Potocka, in the capacity of a more or less honorary lady's maid. So that, when their happy hour had struck at last, and they stood together before the altar, there had been as much grey as dark in the dashing bridegroom's hair and moustache, and the curls that framed the blushing face of the bride had begun to silver.
But the silver in their hair had not marred their conjugal felicity; and their belated love had borne fruit in an only daughter, of almost the same age as the blind boy.
Having attained for their old age a home that, conditionally at least, they might call their own, the aging couple had settled down in it to a simple, quiet life that might make up to them, in its peace and solitude, for their strenuous years of drudgery for others. Their first venture had not worked out too well, and they had had to try again, on this rather small estate. But here, too, they had settled down at once to their own way of life. With the willow branch and the "thunder candle"* in the icon corner, by the ivy-twined images, Pani Yaskulskaya kept always a supply of herbs and roots, to treat her husband's ailments and those of the village folk who came to her for help. These herbs filled the whole house with a peculiar fragrance, which would come back invariably, even to chance visitors, at every recollection of the little home, so neat and clean and peaceful, or of the aging couple who had settled there, or of the tranquil life they lived—a strange life, somehow, in our day.
[*A wax candle that is lit during bad storms, or to be held by the dying.]
And with these two old people lived their only daughter— a little girl with sky-blue eyes, and long, fair hair that she wore braided down her back; a child of an uncommon staidness, in her whole little being, that immediately struck everyone who met her. It was as though the tranquillity of the parents' elderly love had come down to the daughter, finding expression in an unchildlike sobriety, a gentle quietness of movement, a look of thoughtfulness that never left the depths of her blue eyes. The little girl was never timid or shy with strangers. She did not avoid other children, but joined willingly in their games. Yet, always, there was a sort of kindly condescension in her manner, as though—for herself—she had no need of such amusement. And, true enough, she could be perfectly happy all alone—wandering through the fields, gathering flowers, or talking to her doll, all with so sedate an air that she often seemed less a child than a tiny woman.